The Well of Souls
by Jersey13
Summary: A rescue mission goes terribly awry for Sheppard's team plus Beckett. A virus is let loose on Atlantis, and soon the entire city is in terrible danger. Gen, team fic. Rated T for creepy situations and some mild violence. Now complete!
1. Village of the Damned

TITLE: The Well of Souls (tentative, for now)

AUTHOR: Jersey13

DISCLAIMERS: Stargate: Atlantis is copyrighted by MGM and is not mine. This was written just for fun, and I'm not making any money from writing it.

RATING: PG-13 (may be changed to R if later chapters turn out the way I think they will)

WARNINGS: Some violence, frightening and icky situations.

INSPIRATION: This is my first try at writing creepy fic. Carson is just so sweet and nice that I couldn't resist writing this. Inspiration for this story comes from reading Flah7's creepy fics. I love creepy SGA. Thanks, Flah7! Thanks also to Leighanners, Miyth, and TJuk from Gateworld!

Whumping for everybody!

-----

Dr. Rodney McKay shifted the uncomfortable weight of the pack he carried on his shoulders for the sixth time since having to lift it off the floor. Why Colonel Sheppard had insisted that he carry all of Beckett's extra first aid supplies was beyond him, and it put him in an even more irritable mood than he was normally in on most other days allocated for off-world exploration missions. He rolled his eyes and shifted his feet impatiently as the process of dialing the Stargate from Atlantis to their destination seemed to take longer than it usually did.

All he wanted was to simply finish the rescue mission as quickly as possible and then come back home so he could resume his research. Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Dr. Carson Beckett, and Colonel John Sheppard all waited patiently beside him for the Stargate to open. Just as Rodney thought he might have been about to start tapping his feet with impatience, the event horizon of the wormhole burst through the center of the Stargate with its customary water-like surface.

Without hesitation, the team of five stepped through the Stargate to their destination. Rodney groaned with contempt as he found himself stepping out of the other side of the Stargate at an odd angle and almost fell into the soft mud, his feet making loud squelching noises as he stumbled forward. The Stargate had been leaning forward at an angle, about ten degrees forward, which was the cause of his momentary disorientation. He sighed heavily as he realized that he should have worn boots instead; his comfortable hiking shoes were now likely ruined.

Rodney's gaze shifted from his shoes to the landscape surrounding them. Blackened, vine-covered trees with no leaves grew in clumps at the edges of the murky yellow-brown swamp water that surrounded the Stargate. Algae could be seen on the surface where his vision wasn't obscured by a thick, viscous mist that hung in the still air. The only hint of green was a few clumps of grass that clung to the rutted sides of a gravel path. On that path laid a young man, lying absolutely still; it was the man in the video feed that the MALP had recorded with its camera the first time the wormhole had opened to that world.

There was absolutely no way Colonel Sheppard would be able to convince him to cross the swamp to get to him. Dr. Beckett, however, was unfazed by the eerie scenery. He strode confidently through the murky water over to the path. Rodney felt a little better, though, after seeing that the water had only really been a few inches deep as Carson waded through it.

"Rodney, I might need those medical supplies you're carrying." Carson was trying to wait patiently as Rodney carefully stepped through the muck in an effort to join him with Colonel Sheppard, Ronon, and Teyla following close behind. A surreptitiously well-placed root managed to snag the toes of his left foot and caught on his laces, causing him to lose his balance. He swayed for a moment, flailing out his arms in an effort to regain his balance, but ultimately failed. He listed off to his right side and landed bottom-first in the water.

The dead weight of his pack made it difficult for him to lift himself out of the ice cold muddy water, which somehow managed to seep into his trousers and through the back his shirt. He clenched his eyes against the chill of the water seeping into his clothing and was grateful to see helping hands being offered by Colonel Sheppard and Ronon. Rodney was yanked to his feet quickly and started to shiver as water dripped from his pack and trousers.

Carson stood and looked on in annoyance, swearing Scottish curses under his breath as he removed the boxes from the pack on Rodney's back and hoping that they had been sealed well enough to prevent the water from ruining it. Upon opening them up, he inspected their contents and found them in good order, then slipped on a pair of gloves. He carefully kneeled down and felt the young man's wrist for a pulse, then checked his neck to be sure, but found none. Even after listening carefully with his stethoscope, he found no sign of life.

"He's dead," Carson stated as he examined the cold, lifeless body for evidence of trauma. His frown deepened as he spied bruises under a loose, simple collar of plainly woven fabric. "It looks like he might have been strangled, and not long ago by the looks of it. Rigor mortis has only just begun to set in."

Colonel Sheppard turned to face the direction of Ronon and Teyla, who had moved around to get a better look at what laid in either direction of the path. "Ronon, do you think you can figure out which direction his attacker might have gone?"

Ronon gazed down at the ruts and the jumbled, muddy footprints in the gravel, turning in place for a moment, then motioned toward Sheppard's right along the path. "They went that way."

"C'mon, Doc," Sheppard muttered as Carson took off his gloves and closed his medical kit. "Stay close."

Rodney had taken off his jacket to wring out the remaining water and jogged to catch up, taking up position next to Carson as Sheppard and Teyla readied their weapons and took point, with Ronon bringing up the rear. Water sloshed around in his shoes as he walked, but at least he didn't feel quite so cold any more. The wetness was starting to make his pants feel warm and sticky, and he certainly didn't look forward to the rash he was positive would result from the wet fabric chafing the inside of his legs as he walked.

It remained eerily silent in the still air and murky water surrounding them. Without even the sound of toads croaking or crickets chirping, something about it just didn't quite seem normal. None of them could bring themselves to speak, and the sound of a swiftly-moving creek and fish jumping at the surface of water could be heard to one side as they walked past. Water raged through a small channel in a torrent, as if somewhere not too far away a deluge of rain was washing away the mud and grime from the world.

As the path curved away from the creek, it widened a bit and the ruts became deeper, more-or-less obviously made by primitive wagons. Their shoes and boots crunched loudly underfoot, slicing through the eerie silence as pebbles became scarcer and rocks and stones became more common.

Through the mist that hung delicately in the air, Sheppard managed to see the outskirts of a barricade. Upon further inspection, though, it had long remained in a decrepit condition, and a guard post that looked to have once stood in front of it was a fallen-down mess that hadn't yet been cleaned up. Beyond the barricade, the old mud brick homes with thatched wood roofs were in shambles. Fire pits were dark and full of many layers of gooey, wet soot that spoke of at least several days passed without having been lit. The stables, still full of hay, housed no horses or similar creatures.

They decided to break up into two groups and searched the village for signs of life. Carson, Rodney, and Ronon wandered off to the left, John and Teyla wandered to the right. Passing by and looking through burnt homes and barren fields of small vegetables that looked like spiny cucumbers, they found no sign of anyone.

John and Teyla were circling back around to rejoin the others when off to his left John thought he saw a peculiar bundle of cloth in his peripheral vision not too far from where the free-flowing creek snaked around the furthest edges of the village. He stopped, slowly stepped closer, and saw a patch of matted, dark brown hair protruding out from underneath an arm. It was a person; more specifically, a woman.

He tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping that she would rouse on her own. When she didn't, John slowly pulled her onto her back. Her pale, light-green eyes stared blankly at the gray sky from deeply sunken eye sockets set in an unnaturally pale and delicate face. She was drenched in sweat, the linen cloth of her clothing clung loosely to her body, and her hands were thoroughly coated with some kind of slimy green mucus.

Sheppard touched his radio. "Beckett, you better get over here. I found someone just outside the village and she looks pretty sick."

"We'll be right there," Carson's voice answered over his headset.

A sudden movement from the young woman startled him. Her arms reached out for something or someone in front of her that wasn't there, and the movement flung gobs of mucus from her hands everywhere. Some of it managed to splatter onto John's shoulders and chin.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed, using one of his sleeves to wipe his face. Teyla came back to his side as the vibration of bounding footsteps on the gravel echoed behind her.

"Get out o' the way!" Carson bellowed as he approached, Ronon and Rodney close on his heels. He opened up his medical kit, slipped on a fresh pair of gloves, and tried to examine her, but the flailing of her arms was keeping his hands busy. "Could you give me a hand, Colonel?"

John tried to accommodate the doctor, but every time he tried to hold her arms down at her side, carefully avoiding contaminating himself with the nasty gunk on her hands, the sheer power of her strength surprised him. She then threw him off of her like a sack of potatoes and tried to stand up. Carson tried to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder to calm her down, but she instead knocked it away and tackled him roughly to the ground.

Her mucus covered hands curled around his neck as she began to strangle him, causing Carson's breath to catch in his lungs and his face to turn red. No matter how hard he tried to yank her hands away, her grip on his neck was too strong, and she would not budge. Even Teyla, Rodney, and John's combined strength trying to pull her off of him didn't seem to work very well.

Stars and lights passed through Carson's vision as the hum of a stunner coming alive sounded behind him. Ronon calmly fired the weapon and stunned the young woman into unconsciousness. He reached for her collar with one hand and helped Sheppard yank her prostrate form off from over top of Carson.

Ronon peered down at the Scot, towering over him. "You okay?"

Carson sucked great draughts of the thick swamp air into his lungs as he coughed and rolled onto his side to make it easier to breathe. As he struggled for breath, Teyla took a few tentative steps backward as she peered into the dense thicket of trees closer to the creek's bank. Dozens of dark, grimy figures that had been unseen leaning against trees or lying in the mud started to climb to unsteady feet. They moved slowly and intentionally closer, one step at a time.

"Hello?" Teyla called out to them cautiously. "Are you the people that live here?"

As they slowly and steadily crept closer, John and Rodney stood up at Teyla's side to see what was going on. Pale green eyes set deeply in pale white faces stared back at them unwaveringly, not uttering a word. The fingers on their hands twitched nervously, all dripping gooey green mucus into the mud.

"Maybe we should just get the hell out of here," Rodney said nervously.

Colonel Sheppard turned and scooped up Carson's medical kit, shoving it into Rodney's hands. "I tend to agree."

John and Ronon dragged Carson up to his feet, and as Carson struggled to regain his breath, the group of sick villagers started moving as one, running at full speed towards them.

Sheppard and Teyla raised their P90 machine guns and aimed at the crowd. "Start running!" Sheppard ordered to the rest of the team.

They paused for a moment, hoping that seeing them raise their weapons would scare the crazed villagers into halting their pursuit. When it became obvious that they had no intention of stopping, he fired a few hesitant rounds into the chest of the one in the lead. The man wasn't even fazed by the injury.

He immediately emptied his entire clip of ammunition into the crowd, and Teyla did the same. All sixty bullets from both clips in the machine guns managed to find their marks on at least a dozen of their targets, but didn't do much more than cause one of them to trip and fall. They watched in horror as even he pushed himself up from the gravel and once again began running.

John ran for all he was worth. If bullets couldn't slow these things down, much less stop them, they had a serious problem.


	2. Purgatory

Rodney was the first to stop at the edge of the gravel path, hesitant to cross the swamp and risk getting swallowed up by it this time. Carson was just behind him and was glad to have another moment to catch his breath. Streaks of light were beginning to cross his vision again, probably because of the strenuous running after having almost been strangled. He hadn't had a chance to clean off the nasty stuff that was clinging to his neck, either, and it was becoming itchy.

"Time to go, kids," Sheppard said as he and Teyla caught up to the others near the Stargate. The mob chasing them wasn't far behind.

John gently shoved the rest of his team to make them move faster. They finally managed to move forward single-file through the mud back to the Stargate, but before he could step off the steep bank to follow them, it started to crumble and disintegrate. John fell hard into the mud onto his back, knocking the wind out of him as he started to sink. The water was much deeper where he had fallen.

Muddy water rushed over his face and he clawed at it in an effort to not choke. John felt someone's hand grabbing his vest and pulling his head up out of the water. His efforts to clear his face of mud ended up splashing mud into the face of his savior.

"Will you quit squirming? You're splashing mud into my eyes." Sheppard rubbed the dirt off of his eyelids and opened them to see that McKay was the one who had waded chest-deep into the water to help. "That big sissy you call 'Ronon' was too scared to come and save you himself. It must be because of all those movies that you made him watch."

"We aren't sinking," Colonel Sheppard affirmed, surprised. Ronon was scared? After considering how shocked Ronon seemed after witnessing the countless quicksand deaths of nameless villains and heroes in several movies that had been shown over the last few weekends, perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised.

"You noticed that, huh?" Rodney replied sarcastically. "Well for your information, Mr. MENSA, people don't usually drown in quicksand or mud. It's denser than normal water and even more difficult to drown in, and if you don't start moving your ass those mutant people are probably going to do a much more thorough job of killing us!"

John turned just in time to see several of them stop at the edge of the embankment near the mud hole. He clawed at the mounds of mud next to his team, and luckily for them Teyla and Carson had managed to find safe places to place their feet and get close enough to help haul them out of the mud. Sheppard then scrambled to the DHD and started to dial Atlantis.

As the wormhole burst through the ring of the Stargate with its normal efficiency, despite its listing to one side, he touched his radio and shuffled his team through back to the city. "Atlantis, we're coming in hot!"

John took a moment to glance behind him, but upon doing so immediately knew it had been a bad idea. The angry mob was almost within arm's reach of him. They each reached out to him blindly through the crowd of sick faces. He staggered backward through the event horizon of the Stargate as one hand was almost close enough to touch his nose.

He landed hard on his side onto the cold hard floor of the control room and was quite grateful to be on solid ground once more. John heard Rodney bark orders to raise the shield as he pushed himself to his feet. Moments later, he saw faint flashes of light on the force field's surface.

It was a grim reminder of how dangerous it really was to travel the way they did through the Stargate. He regretted seeing anyone having to lose their life as their molecules were disintegrated against the force shield, but those poor people probably deserved it least of all. And now they might never discover the real cause of that horrible sickness, not until it managed to pop up on another hapless world full of pre-industrial people with no way to cure or control it before it decimates their population.

"You're filthy," Dr. Elizabeth Weir stated as John brought himself back to his senses. "What happened?"

"We were being chased by an angry mob of sick villagers," Sheppard said dryly, not envying the job of the person whose task it would be to clean up all the mud they were leaving behind. "Beckett was attacked and almost strangled to death by one of them."

"Sick?" she repeated hesitantly. "If your team was exposed to an illness from those villagers, we need to enact quarantine procedures to contain it immediately."

"Contamination is a distinct possibility," Sheppard confirmed.

A groan coming from John's left caught his attention, and he turned in time to see Carson collapse heavily onto the floor. A med tech, a young woman, caught him before he hit his head and called urgently for a gurney. As they checked his vital signs, he was lifted by two other med techs with care onto a gurney that had been wheeled in with another medical team.

"I want everyone in this room under quarantine immediately." Elizabeth started giving orders to the techs in the room. "Let's see if we can avoid a complete lockdown of Atlantis and have the Daedalus transport people directly to isolation rooms in the infirmary."

Carson and his entourage of med techs were the first to be whisked away by the beam of light to the infirmary. One by one, each member of Colonel Sheppard's team began disappearing from the control room in a flash of light. Soon enough, the bright white beam of light enveloped John himself and left him standing idly in the middle of a very small, very bleak and grey isolation room. A table, a single cot, and a small wall-mounted computer terminal were the only furnishings the room had to speak of.

John sat down heavily onto the cot and sighed as an orderly protected by a hazmat suit took some blood samples and promptly left. He was running on mostly adrenaline by this time and had the sudden urge to stand and start pacing through the small confines of what would be his room for the next few days, but he pushed it back into the deepest recesses of his mind where it belonged. Memories of the last few times he'd been confined in the infirmary still plagued him, but he was far too well-trained to allow it to bother him when he was needed.

Nagging fatigue then pushed its way unwittingly between his conscious mind and coherent thought processes, and he felt himself laying his head back against the stiff and starched fabric of what should have felt like a pillow on the cot. He simply couldn't keep his eyes open any longer as he succumbed to the quiet, stark silence of the isolation room.

------

Unlike John, Rodney had never been less in a mood to rest his entire life. After giving up some blood samples and watching the orderly leave, he alternated between fits of pacing and sitting cross-legged on his cot and fidgeting his hands and fingers. The thought of being infected with whatever illness the mutant mob of villagers had been afflicted with was terrifying. As he imagined what it would be like to be reduced to a mindless savage that didn't know how to do anything except strangle the people around him, he paced the confines of the suffocating and claustrophobia-inducing cell that he'd been beamed into.

Being confined to his quarters or even, if necessary, restrained in a bed in the main part of the infirmary would have been immensely preferable to the closet he was currently being kept in. Rodney's eyes darted back and forth between peering through the small clear window of the door and the ruined computer console that decorated the wall with its presence. It certainly didn't do anything else that was useful, and not for a lack of trying to fix it, either. The people outside in their hazmat suits were far too busy to bother bringing him any replacement parts, and Dr. Zelenka was simply nowhere to be found.

It was little comfort for him to know that the other members of his team were in cells just like his; there was no way in hell that they were suffering as much as he was, though. A streak of anger followed the thought that Carson was probably being coddled somewhere else in a much more spacious part of the infirmary. Of course he didn't envy the man having been almost strangled, but at the moment his claustrophobia attack was distressing him to the point where he was debating whether or not Carson had gotten the luckier end of the poking stick of fate.

The sudden musical tone of the door to his cell being unlocked startled him from his reverie. Rodney watched attentively as a young woman in a white lab coat walked in. She was blonde and wore thin-rimmed glasses. Had he not been so unnerved at the moment he might have been inclined to at least attempt to feign interest and treat her nicely, but flirting with the young woman was the last thing he wanted at the moment. All he wanted was to get out of that closet-like room and go back to his research.

"You'll be glad to know that your blood work came back clean," she informed him idly. He was about to push past her, but her hand appeared on his shoulder and stopped him. "But everyone in the infirmary is staying under quarantine for a while longer, just to be sure."

"I can't stay in here," he complained, his frown deepening. "Some of us have real work to do."

She sighed in exasperation. "I'm sorry, Dr. McKay, but these are Dr. Wier's orders."

He was determined to argue as heatedly as he had to in order to be allowed to leave the sardine-can like isolation room. "I feel fine! You said yourself that my blood work tested negative for infection."

He reached out and put his hand on the door frame in an attempt to keep it open as she tried to ignore him, and she stopped and turned around. He looked at her with pleading eyes.

"Please," he whispered as he fidgeted nervously. He hated begging, but wasn't beyond resorting to it in desperate situations, and sometimes he managed to call up enough charm from within himself that it would occasionally work. "Can't I be isolated somewhere else or be restricted to quarters instead or something?"

"I'll pass on your request to Dr. Biro." She closed the door on him as she spoke, almost crushing Rodney's fingers in the process. Apparently his finesse was going to need a little more work next time.


	3. What's the Worst That Could Happen?

His head ached. It was that dull and persistent kind of throb that stayed around for a long time, like a migraine. It was a struggle for him to lift his heavy eye lids, but as he managed to force them to open and focus his eyes, he wasn't surprised to see that he was in the infirmary. He was surprised, however, by the fact that he was surrounded by a plastic isolation curtain and quite a few doctors along with Dr. Weir, and they were all dressed in red hazmat suits.

Carson tried to use his voice, but his throat was parched, dry, and turned his words into a faint whisper that not even he could hear. Dr. Weir was nearby and placed a gloved hand comfortingly on his arm.

"You probably shouldn't try to talk yet," she urged him quietly. "Your trachea is pretty badly bruised."

She peered down through the visor of her hazmat suit at him as he tried to fathom what was going on. He wasn't really sure why he felt so stiff nor why it hurt so much to breathe. Trying to remember what had happened only made his head hurt worse.

"What happened?" he managed to croak finally.

Dr. Weir's brow furrowed. "We were hoping you could tell us. Can you remember any of it?"

Carson shook his head, confused and frustrated that he couldn't seem to recall anything beyond the moment he stepped through the Stargate. The movement managed to cause a wave of nausea that he clenched his eyes shut against.

"Carson, you went with Colonel Sheppard's team on a rescue mission." She tried to explain slowly. "You were attacked and almost strangled while you were there."

All at once, the memories of their trek through the mud and the maddened villagers that had chased them flooded back into his mind. Even though the memories following that moment were hazy, he remembered seeing the young woman that was standing over him with her hands on his neck, strangling him with her impossibly powerful grip. The reason for the hazmat suits suddenly clicked into place.

"I've been infected?" he gasped in horror as he struggled to sit up. "What about the rest of Colonel Sheppard's team? Are they alright?"

She gently pushed him back against the bed. "Yes, they're fine. The initial round of blood work on them isn't showing any signs of infection. Dr. Biro is already preparing to do another round of testing just to make sure."

Carson visibly relaxed a bit. He cautiously brought his hands up from his sides to his face to see what horrible transformation had been done to them, but sighed in relief as he inspected them carefully and found nothing overly out of the ordinary. His hands weren't dripping with slime, but were covered in perspiration. In fact, his entire body was covered with sweat, but other than experiencing some sudden feverish chills, he didn't feel very ill; it was certainly not as severe as what the villagers on the swamp planet had appeared to experience.

Carson willfully pulled himself into a more professional state of mind, despite his fever and rising panic. "It's possible that human physiology on Earth is different enough that this virus doesn't affect us the same way."

"Dr. Biro seems to think that may very well be the case," Dr. Weir affirmed. "However, the virus could also be just in its earliest stages of infection. Dr. Biro started you on a course of strong antibiotics already just in case, but we don't really know what kind of natural immunities you may have to it."

He figured that it was likely the antibiotics that had been making him feel queasy. There was no point in getting upset at what he couldn't change, so Carson tried to just lie back, take a deep breath, and relax. He was getting tired again, too. As horrible as he was feeling at the moment, he remarked to himself that at least it was a good sign that, considering the aches and pains and fever, at least his body was reacting to the infection and trying to eliminate it. With some luck, the antibiotics would take care of the virus and he'd be able to safely wait it out, like trying to get over a bout of the flu.

"I have good news, Dr. Weir," Dr. Biro said as she appeared from around a corner, probably from one of the laboratory sections of the infirmary where she had been doing her testing. She wasn't wearing a hazmat suit as she began to disassemble the isolation curtain separating Carson from the rest of the infirmary. "All our test samples indicate that there's no possibility of the virus being airborne, which means you and everyone else who hasn't been in physical contact with Colonel Sheppard's team are free to return to duty."

Without hesitation, Dr. Weir removed the protective helmet of her hazmat suit and gave Carson a warm, reassuring smile. Her attention was suddenly drawn away from him, though, as Dr. McKay's irate voice could be heard heatedly arguing with the poor orderly that had been assigned to care for Colonel Sheppard's team after they had been transported into isolation rooms. Obviously, he'd just been told himself that the virus wasn't airborne.

"I understand that you were just doing your duty, now let me do mine by letting me get back to work. Get out of my way!" he growled irritably as he shoved his way past her and walked headlong through the hallways of the isolation ward where he found Dr. Wier and decided to make his complaints known. "Only God knows why Carson would choose to employ nurses with such horrible bedside-manners. This has been the absolute worst twenty-four hours of my… Carson?" He paused, stammering curiously. "You look… horrible."

Carson hadn't thought it was possible to look that much worse than he felt. He was filthy, his clothing still covered with mud from the ordeal, but he hadn't realized how completely drenched with sweat he was. His clothing was soaked, even now after a full day had passed, and his hair was disheveled and stuck out precariously against his skull in clumps. Such profuse sweating was uncommon, even for feverish patients, so it did have him a bit worried.

"I'll be fine, Rodney," Carson lied, crossing his arms over his chest in feigned indignation and confidence. He'd never admit it, but he did think that the expressed sentiment for his well-being was touching and also disturbing at the same time.

A terse moment passed with not a word spoken before Dr. McKay finally broke the silence. "I... uh… I'm going to go back to my lab. There might be a reference to this virus in the Ancient database."

Before Rodney could escape, Elizabeth yanked him back away from the door. "Rodney, you know perfectly well that everyone that may have been in contact with this virus needs to wait for another battery of tests, just to be sure. You don't have to go back into the isolation room, but you do have to stay here in the infirmary."

He stood reluctantly for a moment, then turned around and sat on the bed next to Carson's, letting out a heavy sigh. Teyla and Ronon, whose appearances were followed closely by Colonel Sheppard, hesitantly entered the isolation room a moment later. Ronon's face was as implacable as it had ever been, but concern for Carson's welfare was etched on Teyla's thoughtful face as she saw his pale and weakened condition for herself.

"You are feeling better, I hope?" Teyla asked cautiously.

"Oh, aye," Carson replied tiredly with a forced smile. "I'm fine."

Colonel Sheppard stopped at Dr. Weir's side and spoke softly. "Are you sure that there's no possibility that he might, you know, go a little crazy on us?"

"There are two armed guards at each entrance to the infirmary, just in case," she reassured him quietly.

Carson was glad to have friends that cared about him enough to come and see him in the infirmary, but he wasn't so sure that he liked the thought that guards might be necessary because of his condition. Whatever this bug was that had infected him, he had absolutely no intention of going anywhere before he was sure it was gone. But in his slight stupor induced by fever, fatigue, and medication, he couldn't help but wonder if it was really possible that he might succumb to the same impulses and symptoms exhibited by the poor villagers of that world they had run from. Denial was certainly a powerful weapon against such fears, and it was a weapon that Carson was more than happy to embrace as his conscious mind slipped away into a dream-wracked sleep.

-----

_It lurked silently in the depths of the forest before its prey, unseen. The foolish human had only to look in its direction and its presence would have been noticed, but the creature continued to simply sit at the shallow shore of the gushing waters near the crackling fire, oblivious to his peril. He neither moved away nor did he look back at the trees when other humans began stirring around him. This creature was the perfect target._

_It slunk closer, slowly, one tiny delicate movement after another, eyes unfocused on its target lest it give away its intentions. The thrill of the hunt along with a rush of adrenaline surged through its body, making it that much more difficult to keep still enough for its approach to not be noticed._

_Muscles clenched in anticipation. Its slow, steady breathing became slightly more ragged. The fine hairs on the back of its neck bristled with the tension building underneath. The human stood, so it braced itself, absolutely still and remaining effectively hidden between the dark trees._

_The other humans simply walked away back to their dwellings, leaving the intended prey alone and indifferent to his fate as he stepped closer to the rocky shore and picked up a stone. The moment was near, but it remained patient. It watched intently as the human tossed the stone into the water and bent down to pick up another._

_Now was the moment! In a blur of motion, it bounded from its hiding place through the dense thicket of trees separating it from its prey. The creature had only barely had enough time to lift his head before his neck was in the powerful grip of the hunter. Its breath caught in its throat as it watched the life slowly drain from the human's face. Wave after wave of pleasure and satisfaction passed through its mind and body as the human's strength faded before its eyes. In a few moments, his arms hung limply at his sides, blood dripped from his nose and mouth, and his features were pale and discolored._

_Startled, it dropped its prize as it heard the shouts of the other humans nearby and realized with some annoyance that the attack must have been noticed. At least the human it had chosen wasn't too heavy to be able to carry off. Its primary agenda complete, it flung its captured prey onto its shoulders and leapt into the safety of darkness._

-----

Carson woke with a start. The lights of the infirmary were subdued, and Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, and Rodney had all left him to get some much-needed sleep some time ago. He wiped his sleeve across his face, and it came back even more drenched in his sweat. Strangely, though, he did feel a lot better than he had a few hours ago when he had first woken up. His throat wasn't quite as hoarse and sore as it had been before, and even the nausea from the antibiotics had mostly gone.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position on the bed and noted with some discomfort that his muscles were still stiff and aching. He feebly attempted to swing his legs around the side of the bed in an effort to get up and walk over to the infirmary's lavatory, but his legs were weak and couldn't hold his weight. His body slid uncontrollably to the floor.

Trying to right himself, he grabbed at the edge of the bed. As he carefully repositioned his hands in an attempt to try and haul himself up once more, he wondered why the edge seemed so slippery. He wiped his hands against his shirt and tried again, leaving behind a few slimy streaks of yellow-green mucus that went unnoticed.

Finally managing to climb back onto the bed, he collapsed against it, exhausted. He mused with a small smile that at least he didn't have to go too badly, or he obviously wouldn't have made it with enough time to spare. Carson once more drifted off into sleep.


	4. A Disturbing Revelation

A/N: I admit that this chapter has been the most disturbing for me to write so far. I won't go in depth, but I have had some bad experiences in my past that I drew upon while writing this. I hope you're all enjoying it, because I sure poured my heart into it.

* * *

John had suffered through a migraine headache most of the day before finally being allowed to take some aspirin. By that time, every other member of his team had been informed that they were cleared to go back to their normal duties after the second round of blood tests had come up negative for infection. McKay had been the first to disappear from the infirmary after the news broke. He was positive that McKay had quite a few choice words for Dr. Zelenka, who had blatantly ignored every one of his attempts to have someone bring some of his research to him in the infirmary.

Not that he could blame him, though, for being worried considering all the different stories that were floating around. As he sat quietly eating his lunch in the commissary, he could scarcely believe it himself. Every time he overheard someone retelling the story to someone else, it seemed exaggerated and became more and more gruesome every time he heard it. If there was one thing he hated about living in a city with more civilians present than military personnel, it was the way scuttlebutt was passed along like that.

He looked up from his meal as a tray was set down on the table in front of the seat across from him. Dr. McKay sat down without so much as a greeting and started eating his turkey sandwich. Neither of them was in a very good mood today.

"So," Rodney began with a mouthful of turkey sandwich. "Did you see Carson today?"

John wasn't all that sure he really wanted to talk about it, but responded anyway. "Yeah, I have."

Rodney swallowed hard and waited a moment before taking another bite. "Is he feeling any better? I haven't had a chance to see him since yesterday."

Sheppard looked away and scratched his head reflexively. "No, Rodney. I'd say he's not feeling better."

He stopped mid-chew. "What do you mean?"

"The last time I saw him, he was catatonic." John decided that it shouldn't be necessary to say more.

"Hmm," Rodney mumbled somewhat more apathetically than he meant to. "Well… maybe I should go see him again, then."

"I wouldn't," John replied despondently. Deciding that he'd had enough lunch as he rose from his chair, he picked up his tray and set it down on the pile to be washed.

Rodney watched him leave and suddenly wasn't sure that he had enough of an appetite left to finish his sandwich. He wondered why John had so casually discouraged him from seeing Carson. With everything that had happened, Rodney couldn't imagine that the good doctor wouldn't want company. Being in a catatonic state just meant that he wouldn't be able to argue with him about anything he had to say. Maybe if Rodney could somehow manage to annoy him enough, Carson just might decide to wake up and say something.

* * *

He halted, hesitant to open the door. Rodney had been given an expectation by one of the guards at the door of what he would find inside, and he was suddenly reluctant to confront it. For a long moment, he simply stared at the panel on the door, debating silently with himself over whether or not he should just forget about it and go back to work or simply get the visit over with.

He knew it would nag him the rest of the day if he didn't do it. Slowly, Rodney reached for the panel, opened the door, and stepped through. He was almost thankful that the guards didn't bother to follow him inside.

In the center of the tiny isolation room, Carson was laid out flat on a cot. Rodney almost thought he was asleep for a moment, but as he stepped closer he noticed that Carson's eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. He pulled up a chair next to the cot and sat down. For a long moment, Rodney just sat there quietly. It was one of those few and awkward moments in his life where he wasn't really sure that he knew what he wanted to say.

"You know what your problem is?" Rodney began, speaking more to himself than to Carson. "You're too nice to people. Every time you go off world, something awful happens to somebody and you're there to pick up the pieces. This time it just happened to nip you in the ass instead of someone like me."

His commentary elicited no reaction. Rodney wanted to slap him across the face to make him wake up and pay attention, but restrained himself. Another moment of awkward silence filled the room.

"Don't you ever get tired of it?" He wasn't even thinking about trying to be meaningful any more and just let loose a stream of consciousness, pausing dramatically between sentences. "Don't you ever get tired of being nice? You don't have to be nice all the time for people to like you, you know. I mean, look at me; I'm rude to everybody, and nobody hates my guts. Well, maybe not 'no one', but I don't think people hate me. Do you hate me, Carson? Am I a horrible person for letting this to happen to you?"

"No, Rodney." Carson's weak response was so unexpected that it almost made him jump right out of his seat. "I don't hate you."

"You just scared the hell out of me, you know!" Rodney jumped up, almost frantic, his back as straight as a board. "I thought you were supposed to be comatose or something."

"Catatonic, you mean?" Carson clenched his fists and took a deep breath in an attempt to keep from becoming overly annoyed. "Maybe I was for a while, but I'm starting to feel better now. And it wasn't like I couldn't hear you or Colonel Sheppard when you spoke around me."

He frowned. It was instantly obvious to Rodney that Carson was in a bad mood, and it made him feel defensive. "So, you were just pretending then? Talk about rude."

Carson sat up stiffly on the cot, his thin lips curling into a snarl, and shot him a cold look. "I'm in no mood for your bickering today, Rodney."

The look on Carson's face shocked him. His normally bright blue eyes were narrow and had turned an unnaturally pale shade of green, sunken deep in his pale, sweat-soaked face. Carson was furious with him, and Rodney had never seen him furious with anybody; his kinder and gentler nature was always the more dominant. Rodney folded his arms across his chest and decided it would be best to change the subject as quickly as possible.

"So you're feeling better then?" he mumbled.

Carson's eyes softened a bit as he looked away. "Better."

Rodney fumbled for more to say. "Do you, uh, want anything?"

"What could I possibly want?" Carson demanded, his eyes narrowing. Frustration was again obvious in his voice.

"I don't know," Rodney replied with agitation apparent in his voice. "Pick something. Maybe you'd like an extra pillow, or a blanket, or maybe a snack from the commissary?"

Carson simply looked up at him as if he was crazy.

"Look," Rodney assured him, his voice cracking slightly. "I'm trying to be nice for a change, okay? Give me a break."

Something in Carson's mind broke in half, letting loose a torrent of emotions that mixed with his growing frustration that was directed solely at Rodney. He exploded with rage, sending Rodney reeling backward with surprise. The next thing Carson knew, he was on his feet, grabbing Rodney's jacket, and was shoving him up against the wall. A sudden desire to begin strangling the life out of him was almost overwhelming, but he caught himself before succumbing completely to the powerful onslaught of emotion.

"I don't want your pity, nor do I need your compassion," Carson muttered angrily, letting fly a gob of spittle that disappeared over Rodney's shoulder.

At that moment, the door whooshed open and Teyla stepped through. Peering at the two men curiously, her shock and dismay were made apparent through her expression, and she moved immediately for the door to summon the guards standing watch behind the door. As they attempted to extricate him, the rage engulfed his mind once more. At his fury, they attempted to tackle him from behind, and he threw them all off of himself with frightening strength. Then, as he pushed himself back up to his feet, three more orderlies from the infirmary joined into the fray. Together, the seven of them slowly managed to haul a screaming Carson back to his cot.

Two of the orderlies began slapping restraints on his chest, wrists, and ankles while the third prepared a syringe loaded with an anti-psychotic sedative. As the sedative was injected into his upper arm, Carson screamed again with rage. But after a few moments passed while the guards continued to hold him down, the screaming abated.

The room began to spin, and waves of vertigo and nausea passed through him. As Carson's heavy breathing became less labored, tears began to well in his eyes. Before they could slide unbidden across his flushed cheeks, his eyes slowly closed, and he slumped back against the pillow, his restraints creaking as the pressure being held against them was slowly released.

Despite his trembling, Rodney slipped off his jacket as quickly and carefully as he could. A large area of the front was covered with gooey slime where Carson had grabbed it. He hadn't honestly believed that Carson would have hurt him, but the enraged look on his face had been enough to scare the hell out of him. Looking down on him now, asleep from sedation on his cot, his face seemed more peaceful at least, although perhaps still a bit troubled; close enough to remind him of the Carson Beckett that he knew.

He felt a sudden need to breathe some fresh air. Rodney tossed his jacket into the corner, not desiring to contaminate the rest of his laundry, and made his escape from the claustrophobia-inducingly tiny room. He strode aimlessly through the corridors of the city, wandering for hours with no particular destination in mind, until he happened upon a curious entrance that led to a balcony overlooking the ocean.

It was night, and dreary clouds hung overhead, blocking out the stars. A stiff breeze kicked up around him as he leaned against the railing and looked down at the ocean, allowing the sound of the lapping water to lull him into a trance-like state. The wind was a bit chilly, but refreshing.

Rodney sat down and dangled his legs over the ledge, leaning on the bottom edge of the railing. A large part of the city was visible beneath him as he surveyed it with his eyes, mentally comparing what he saw with the layout of the city that he had seen so many times before. He could see some lights still on in some of the towers, towers that he knew other members of the Atlantis expedition had rooms in. Those lights would just have to be his stars tonight.

He rested his head against his arms and watched as the clouds broke slightly, allowing one of that world's moons to be seen rising from the northeast before it disappeared under the clouds once more. Rodney's awareness of the world around him disappeared with it as he fell asleep.


	5. A Nightmare in the Making

It wasn't the pitter-patter of rainfall that woke him, but the numbing chill that had soaked into his bones. As he rolled onto his back and tried to push himself into a sitting position, he grimaced with discomfort upon realizing that his arm had fallen asleep under him and wouldn't support his weight. Spasms wracked his poor aching back, and tingling sensations traveled down the length of his arm as circulation slowly returned.

He had fallen asleep in his lab once, slumped over his laptop, and had slept well through the entire night before being woken up by Dr. Zelenka. He remembered the spasms that had afflicted him then being quite similar, but now it was more the cold that was nearly unbearable. Shivers crawled up his spine, aggravating his abused back. And once again, he would have to return to his quarters with water sloshing in his shoes.

Rodney dragged himself to his feet and made his way back to the door, rubbing his arms with his hands in a futile attempt to warm himself back up. Why he had decided to wander around the city and end up falling asleep on a balcony, during a rain storm no less, eluded him for the moment. After a few minutes of trudging back in the direction of the transporter, the warmth of the city seemed to kick start his brain a bit and he began to vaguely recall the past day of events.

As he finally rounded the corner and reached the door to his quarters, he sighed in exasperation for allowing himself to get caught up in his emotions when there was work that had to be done. There was always important work that needed to be done. Rodney took a hot shower, put on some clean clothing, and then pulled out the last set of clean shoes from his closet. He would have to get a few more pairs next time he had some time off on Earth.

He glanced at his watch. It was 0440 hours; it would probably still be some time before the rest of his staff would be waking up and getting ready for their shifts, but Rodney wasn't really tired and didn't want to sleep any more, so he instead decided he would start his shift in the lab early. He could sleep when his day was over.

Rodney stood up and strode from his quarters to the nearest transporter. The first thing he would have to do when he got to his lab would be to brew up a nice, big pot of coffee. The thought put a smile on his face. He was determined to get back to work and put the previous day behind him. The Ancient database awaited him, and if there was any information about Carson's ailment inside it, Rodney was determined to find it.

* * *

Carson slowly managed to open his eyes. His eyesight was washed out and hazy, probably because of the medication he'd been given, but he could see the rough outline of an IV stand in the subdued light. Vague memories flooded back into his mind, memories of Rodney and Teyla. Somehow, he felt like they had been cruel and unfair to him, but at first he couldn't remember why. The now-familiar torrent of emotions and rage buffeted his mind once more, and he found himself only just barely able to hold it at bay as he tried to rationally grasp what his senses were telling him.

His arms were pinned down at his side, and he could not sit up. It slowly registered somewhere in his mind that he was under restraint, still in that windowless isolation room connected to the infirmary. Rage welled up within him as memories surfaced, but Carson was strangely conflicted; he wasn't even all that angry with Teyla and Rodney, despite feeling betrayed by them. A logical part of his mind understood their reaction to him, but another part of his mind was being filled with raw and primitive emotion, and it was growing.

It wasn't altogether unpleasant, though. In fact, the exhilaration and raw power he had felt surging through his body during the previous day's incident was intoxicatingly alluring, and his logical mind was horrified and wracked with guilt at the realization. What might have happened if Teyla hadn't walked in at just the moment she did? Would he have hurt Rodney?

Carson banished the thought from his mind, refusing to capitulate to the anger and hatred associated with the imagery that he knew would drown him. The torrential flood of emotion was beginning to batter his logical mind into submission. His body tensed, pulling at the restraints. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes against the wave of terror that threatened to overcome him. It was like a flood light that threatened to blind him if he opened his eyes.

He couldn't take it any more. He cried out with anger and fear, willing his hands to come free of the bindings that held them at his sides. Carson thrashed desperately, trying to free himself from the suffocating grip that kept him from escaping his torture. Slowly, the fasteners of the restraints began to buckle and twist.

Mustering every bit of strength in him, Carson pulled himself from the grip of the restraints and upon removing them from his wrists and ankles tossed them aside. The crown of a man's head was barely visible through the small viewport in the door. Carson took a step back, then ran forward and braced the full of his weight against the door's frame. It ripped and twisted away from its track and landed mercilessly against the back of the poor guard that had been standing in front of it.

The second guard quickly raised his stunner weapon and fired it at nearly point blank range. Carson saw him raise the weapon and lunged. As it discharged, he felt the energy wave encompass him. It caused a spasm of tension to ripple throughout his body, but it was a surprise even to him when he picked himself up from the floor, ready to pummel the surprised guard into oblivion.

Before the guard could whip out his Beretta handgun, Carson let loose on him a flying tackle that would have made even the Pittsburgh Steelers proud. His rage festered as his desire to hurt and maim escalated, but his opportunity to release his anger and give his victim a thorough beating was interrupted as stunner blasts echoed through the dim hallway behind him. Carson picked up the Beretta, pocketed it, and then turned to face the new aggressors behind him.

Med techs with faces that he might have recognized in a different life appeared from around the corner in the infirmary wielding stunners, firing shots that passed through him mostly ineffectively by now. There were at least a half dozen of them, maybe more, far too many for him to handle by himself. The last thing he wanted was to end up strapped down on that cot again. Carson decided that escaping should take precedence and immediately started running.

It was difficult for him to remember the twisting hallways and corridors of the city. For the most part, he simply chose hallways by listening for sounds from other people and took the way that was silent, but he soon became lost in a labyrinth of hallways that he had never seen before.

As he turned yet another corner, by some stroke of fate he quietly happened upon a lone figure with his back toward him in a particularly dimly lit hallway. It was too tempting of a target. Carson stopped for a moment to catch his breath and watched the man stretch out his back and yawn. As he finally turned to make his own way through the corridor to his destination, the man's face was instantly recognizable as belonging to one Dr. Rodney McKay.

* * *

Rodney had needed a break to put off his sleepiness. He'd only gotten a few hours sleep that night, and it was now almost lunch time. He had just planned to visit the commissary before the crowd developed at noon when he turned and noticed the shadowy figure watching him.

He jumped at the sound of a voice suddenly transmitting over his radio. "This is Dr. Weir. To all personnel: Dr. Carson Beckett has escaped from isolation in the infirmary. If you see him, avoid coming into physical contact with him and report his location to the control room immediately."

The figure in the dark took a step closer. It wasn't until he moved a few more steps out from the shadows could Rodney finally distinguish his identity; it was Carson, of course, and his sweaty face had contorted into the most frighteningly horrible visage of hate and rage that he had ever seen.

"Now look, Carson," Rodney pleaded as he held his hands out in front of him and slowly took a few steps back. "There's no need to do anything rash. I'm sure there's got to be something in the Ancient database that can help you. It's only a matter of time."

His words only seemed to make Carson angrier. Carson took a few steps closer and lunged for him, but Rodney just barely managed to dodge the attack. He touched his radio as he started running through the corridors for his life. He could hear Carson's heavy footsteps behind, chasing him.

"Dr. Weir, this is McKay!" he gasped into the earpiece as he ran.

"Rodney, we've got a situation on our hands here," she answered. "Can it wait?"

"Your situation is chasing me through the corridor, Elizabeth!" he shouted frantically.

There was a slight pause on her end. "Where are you?"

"Section 20-Alpha, headed north," he answered breathlessly.

He was grateful when she answered quickly. "I'm routing Colonel Sheppard's team to intercept you, Rodney. Lead Carson through section 20 and 21 into section 22, near the transporter."

"Are you kidding me? I can't run that far!"

"He needs time to get into position," she explained. "Just do it!"

Rodney didn't bother to sign off his radio. He would need all the energy he had just to run all the way to section 22, and he was going to be sure to give Elizabeth a thorough chewing out when he got out of this. No glance behind him was needed to assure him that Carson was still chasing. His footsteps still echoed through the corridor.

He charged through an open door and turned a corner, half way through section 21, and almost plowed through two men who were probably out to repair some broken conduit or panel. "Get out of my way and get the hell out of here!" he shouted at them as he ran past. Upon seeing Carson chasing him, they dutifully obeyed and started running.

Almost out of breath, he rounded a bend in the corridor that he knew to be located just before a junction of corridors that led into section 22. As he approached the intersection, he slowed down and peered through the adjoining corridors to make sure that they were deserted before he continued.

It suddenly occurred to him that something was wrong. His breathing and his pounding heart echoed in his ears, but Carson's footsteps had disappeared. He warily came to a halt in front of the door that led to section 22 and activated the door panel. It chimed in response and obediently slid open.

He could see Colonel Sheppard and his search team in the distance next to the transporter that was two sections of corridor ahead, their stunners and machine guns raised and ready. He sighed heavily in relief through pained gasps for air and started trotting forward to meet them. He passed another adjoining hallway between the two sections of the corridor, just a few scant meters between him and Sheppard's team.

Rodney had barely had enough time to turn his head to peer down the hallway when he saw Carson barreling toward him at full sprint; an evil grin graced his pale, sunken face. Carson slammed him into the wall with the full force of his weight, momentarily stunning him, and then dragged him up to his feet with a frightening burst of strength.

Carson had just caught sight of the trap that lay ahead for him and was prepared to do whatever he had to do in order to thwart them. He held Rodney in front of him with a half-nelson grip, shielding himself from Sheppard's line of sight.


	6. Shackles of the Mind

"Hold your fire!" John shouted, not yet making a move. "Carson, what the hell do you think you're doing? Let go of him right now!"

Carson remained silent. Rodney struggled against the powerful grip holding him. He figured that if Carson wouldn't listen to him, it wasn't likely that he would listen to Sheppard, either. Panic slowly started settling in with each passing moment.

"Stun them both," Sheppard ordered languidly. He disliked the position that Carson was putting him in.

Several of the soldiers next to John fired their stunners. He watched with growing unease as Rodney slumped over limply in Carson's grip, but the target continued to stand before them unimpeded. Next to him, Ronon tightened his grip on his stunner, but didn't have a clear shot.

Huge beads of perspiration dripped off of John as he wiped his sleeve across his face, reluctantly taking aim with his P90. "Carson, just let Rodney go. I'm not going to tell you again."

Carson hesitantly took a step backward, but said nothing. His face contorted with the strain of all the rage, confusion, fear, and anguish he was experiencing as John watched him apprehensively. Carson did not let up on his grip. A moment later, a single shot from John's P90 rang through the corridor.

He felt the impact on his shoulder, but the strange sensation that resulted was foreign to him. Carson instinctively knew that he'd been shot, but was surprised that he felt no pain. A sort of tingling sensation filtered its way through his senses instead as he felt some of the strength being sapped from his left arm, forcing him to shift Rodney's dead weight to his right. He started to backpedal back down the corridor behind him.

Carson suddenly remembered the Beretta in his pocket. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and switched off the safety in one swift motion, firing several shots randomly into the small crowd of soldiers. Two of the bullets found a target, one in the leg of a new sergeant from the _Daedalus_. The other did a ricochet off the wall and struck a glancing blow to Ronon's head. Ronon collapsed in a heap on top of the injured sergeant clutching his leg in front of him.

More shots sounded, making Carson's ears ring. He felt more impacts on his chest where he had neglectfully left an opening after shifting the weight he was carrying. He almost dropped Rodney as he looked down at his chest in horror. Blood trickled through three different well-placed bullet holes that graced his chest not far from his heart. The tingling sensation passed over him again, but this time shuddered through his entire body. Carson's breath caught in his throat. He could hardly believe that he was still standing.

Before they had a chance to fill him full of more bullet holes, Carson dropped the weapon and threw Rodney over his shoulder. He ran as fast as he could in the direction he had come from, leaving Sheppard to call for a medical team to treat his injured teammates, and Carson hoped that it would slow their pursuit for a while.

* * *

As Dr. Weir arrived in the infirmary, her first concern was that all hell must have broken loose. She'd been told that two men had been shot, but she wanted to see it herself. She was saddened to see that the report hadn't been wrong. Ronon lay unconscious on a cot with a bandage stuck to his right temple, and Sergeant Tillman, new from the _Daedalus_, was sitting on the cot next to him getting his leg bandaged.

Colonel Sheppard appeared from inside an adjoining room of the infirmary and walked over to make his report. "I just spoke with Dr. Biro. She says Ronon's going to be fine."

"What happened?" She asked with an incredulous look as she crossed her arms.

John took a deep breath. "Carson went a little crazy on us when we tried to stop him."

Elizabeth was insistent for more information. "What do you mean?"

His eyes widened, surprised that she even needed to ask. "Let's just say it reminded me a lot of a scene from a bad horror movie. We shot him dead-on in the chest at least three times, and he acted like he hardly felt anything at all. I'm really starting to get creeped out by all this."

Dr. Weir rubbed her chin pensively. "What about Rodney? What happened to him?"

"He was stunned when we tried to stun Carson." John's frown deepened. "Only God knows where he dragged him off to. Zelenka can't seem to pinpoint them with the life-sign sensors any more, either."

"Carson is smart, John," she assured him. "If he wants to avoid capture, he knows which areas of the city the sensors are unreliable."

John scowled and again wiped a cold film of sweat that had formed on his face with his sleeve. "Frankly, Elizabeth, those areas are still massive. There are huge gaps in the sensor coverage all over the north and east piers where they were flooded with water. Most of those areas are _still _flooded. There's no way we can search it all in less than a week."

"Then you and your teams had better get started," she ordered with her usual aura of confidence.

* * *

Not only did Rodney not enjoy the sensation of being carried, but as he slowly roused from stunner-induced unconsciousness, he felt the person carrying him staggering and swaying to and fro as he walked, as if exhausted. At first, it made him afraid that Carson might accidentally drop him. He wondered if it might not be a good idea to try to wriggle out of his grip and run away, but he had no idea where he was or where Carson was taking him.

Carson shifted the weight on his shoulders with a sturdy grip that belied Rodney's initial theory of exhaustion, which immediately prompted him to banish any hope of getting away. It certainly hadn't worked the last time he tried it. If he could feign unconsciousness for a while longer, a better opportunity for escape might present itself.

The sensation of being off-balance jolted him from his reverie, and he carefully resisted the urge to stretch out in an effort to regain his balance. Carson shifted his weight again and continued his trek. The faint tap of shoe steps on plate metal seemed strangely out of place, and Rodney carefully peeked to find out where they were going. They had been descending a staircase into the flooded bowels of the city.

Rodney suddenly realized with horror that they were probably still near the north pier that had been flooded during the rising of the city from the ocean, which meant that Carson had chosen to go this way for only one reason: the sensors didn't work in this area of the city, and he obviously didn't intend for anybody to be able to find them any time soon. If he kept moving, it could be weeks before enough search teams equipped with portable life-signs detectors managed to corner them.

Carson didn't seem to be able to find a spot that he deemed safe enough to set him down. The water level had slowly been rising as he was carried from section to section; it was high enough that Rodney's fingers dragged along the surface as he was carried, so it was at least waist deep in height. He made his way through more flooded sections and suddenly stepped down, which sent Rodney's head under the water as Carson waded chest deep.

_So much for pretending to be unconscious,_ he thought. Rodney instinctively arched his back to pull his head out of the water, almost managing to dislodge himself from Carson's grip, but not quite. He couldn't help coughing and sputtering, but Carson paid it no mind and simply continued over to a ladder that he climbed effortlessly to finally reach his chosen destination.

As Rodney blinked the sea water from his eyes, Carson set him down hard on the grill-like surface of the platform. Water continually dripped and trickled from unseen cracks in the buckled walls, obviously the reason why the room was half full of water. The light was virtually to nil in the room, and the lighting outside the doorway flickered eerily. His only consolation was a beam of faint sunlight that managed to filter through a single small window on the opposite side of the room.

Carson ripped a fiber-optic conduit from the broken and shattered panels on the walls and used it to bind Rodney's hands behind him to a railing opposite the ladder. He sat relatively still as his fit of coughing subsided, not daring to say a word. When finished his task, Carson leaned tiredly against the wall and practically collapsed onto the platform next to him. Maybe he really was exhausted after all.

The faint clink of something small falling onto the platform was the only thing that interrupted their silent reverie for what seemed like a long time. Carson roused himself enough to look down and see what it was. After a moment of feeling around with his fingers, he happened upon what felt like a mangled and twisted bullet lying on the deck-plate next to him.

As he picked it up and examined it in the dim light, he could only surmise that, judging by where it had fallen, it must have become dislodged from his chest as he leaned against the wall. The grim symbol of the confrontation that he had just escaped from suddenly reminded him that there were bullet holes in his chest. He wondered wanly if his health might be in danger, and as he pressed his fingers against his chest to feel his wounds, he grew somewhat concerned at the lack of pain. He mentally remarked to himself that the other two bullets must have been expelled from his chest earlier and he hadn't noticed, because he didn't feel any trace of them.

"That's really disgusting, you know," Rodney muttered with disdain. "Do you have to do that in front of me?"

Carson's hand came away from his chest covered in a film of inky, red- and black-tinged mucus. The flood of emotion that had overwhelmed him early had abated somewhat in intensity now that he almost felt like he was alone, and the more logical and professional portion of his mind was reasserting itself. He began to grasp the significance of what was happening to him. He was finally beginning to realize that it was his friends, not an enemy, who had shot him in Rodney's defense.

"Rodney... I'm terrified." He swallowed hard against the bile rising in his throat. "I don't know what to do."

Rodney stammered in surprise, momentarily unable to think of something to say. "Letting me go would be nice."

Carson stared at him, suddenly afraid of himself and what he might do if he didn't let him go. As terrified as he was and as sympathetic as he felt, he simply could not will himself to get up and untie him. He trembled as he grappled with the conflicting emotions, finally turning his head and looking away. Carson could not force himself to acknowledge Rodney's plight. The hate and rage were coming back, beginning to well up within him once again. He desperately tried to calm his frantic breathing. _If only he hadn't gone and opened his mouth_, Carson thought angrily, _this wouldn't be happening._

Rodney couldn't help himself. If Carson was conflicted, he had to press him. He had to trust him. "Please, Carson, get a hold of yourself. Stop acting so crazy and untie me, right now!"

Carson shakily climbed to unsteady feet. He grimaced with the effort of trying to hold back the tidal wave of rage and the palpable desire to strangle Rodney into oblivion, but in some dark place in his mind, he knew that in a few moments it would inevitably overtake him. Carson watched him shrink back in fear as he lunged for Rodney's neck, finally having lost all sense of himself.

Euphoria washed over him as any desire to retain the capacity for logical thought or compassion faded away.


	7. Epidemic

John's thoughts wandered as he, Teyla, and two others whose names he hadn't yet memorized followed the corridor they had been assigned to search toward the center of the north pier, opening doors along the way and pensively peering inside each one. It was bad enough that he had to split up between the north and east piers the few teams of marines from the _Daedalus_ that he'd been given permission to utilize, but it was worse when he felt like he couldn't keep his own mind on the mission at hand. He couldn't seem to shake the image of having shot Carson in the chest with his P90 out of his head.

He busied himself with pulling the life-signs detector from his pocket, checking it for signs of Carson and Rodney, and then when nothing was found, placed the device back into his vest pocket with a disappointed sigh. The search had not gone well so far; wherever Carson had taken Rodney, he had found a really good hiding place. It had been hours since they disappeared, and John could not shake the feeling that something horrible was happening to his friends right under his nose. The futile nature of searching a city the size of Atlantis for someone who didn't want to be found was frustrating the hell out of him.

Teyla seemed to sense some of his anxiety, and he was somewhat comforted by the thought that she shared many of his concerns. She gave him a questioning look, but said nothing. She didn't need to say anything. John turned his head toward her concerned gaze and tried to console her with a small forced smile, but wasn't really sure how well he had succeeded.

John furtively wiped his sleeve once again across his face and forehead to remove another layer of sweat that had formed over top of the last one. He had no idea why it was getting so warm in the city, but figured it was safe enough to attribute to his growing unease. Teyla continued to peer at him with a concerned look.

"Are you well?" she asked finally, not feeling overly assuaged by his well-practiced, charming smile.

"I'm fine," he said with a voice that sounded deceptively calm, more so than he really felt.

She obviously wasn't convinced. "You look warm."

He was willing to capitulate to that much, at least. "It does feel a bit warm in here."

"It is not that warm in here, John," Teyla stated, her concerned look deepening. "In fact, it is quite cool in this hallway. I believe the temperature has dropped by several degrees in the last several hours now that it is sunset."

John scowled with confusion and rolled his eyes. She didn't really think something was wrong with him, did she? "I told you, I'm fine. I'm just a little warm. Let's just get back to the problem at hand and start concentrating on finding Rodney and Carson, okay?"

Teyla halted in her tracks. "If something is wrong, you may put our search teams in jeopardy."

John turned back, flabbergasted. "You can't be serious!"

"I am quite serious." She raised her P90 without hesitation, but tried to soften her voice enough to quell some of his fear. "I am simply concerned for your safety, John. Please give Lieutenant Collins your weapon."

He reluctantly complied, unclasping the butt of his P90 from its strap and handing it off to the man that stepped up to confiscate it, followed by his Beretta. John felt ashamed and horrified at the same time as he watched Teyla activate her radio to tell the infirmary to expect them. He honestly didn't feel like he was about to go nuts on anyone, and a small part of him even felt disheartened to think that Teyla didn't trust that he would know the difference.

Still, he had to admit, however reluctantly, that if there was a possibility he was infected, it was better to be safe than sorry. He certainly didn't envy Carson's position. John trudged begrudgingly between Teyla in front and of Lt. Collins behind as they began to make their way to the infirmary.

* * *

Carson's mind felt slow and sluggish as he struggled to stay awake, lest he lose himself again. The euphoric sensation had left him some time ago, and for now he simply watched the slow rise and fall of Rodney's chest as he breathed, lying unconscious on the platform across from him. He could see red, black, and blue splotches of bruising underneath viscous globules of mucus that his hands had left on his friend's neck. He felt terrible.

He had almost killed Rodney, his friend.

In fact, after the initial burst of pleasure at releasing his rage had passed and he had finally managed to yank his mucus-covered hands away in horror, Rodney had been so close to death that Carson had needed to perform CPR on him in order to get him to start breathing again. He thought it was ironic that not even all that rage and hate could keep him from saving the life of someone who was dying in front of him, despite the fact that it was he himself who had been the cause of it and had even taken pleasure from doing it. And now, Rodney lay in front of him on his side, barely alive with his wrists still securely bound to the rail behind him.

If he hadn't felt so numb and completely drained of energy, Carson might have cried. He had never before felt so desperately out of control in his entire life, and he hated it. But he knew with an impending sense of dread that the guilt wracking his mind over what he did to Rodney was nothing. His greatest and most terrible fear came with the realization that he knew it would probably happen again and again, and he took very little comfort in knowing that he wouldn't be the only one suffering the humiliation now. Rodney's face was already glinting with a film of sweat in the fading light. For him, the nightmare was just beginning.

* * *

John was trying to wait patiently for news, but sitting and waiting around in a bleak isolation room wasn't something that was easy for him to do. The only bit of news they had offered him so far was that Ronon was awake and up and moving around already, and that when he had insisted on joining Teyla, Dr. Biro and the orderlies had been too tired to try to stop him from leaving. A small smile cracked his lips at the thought of Beckett's orderlies trying to keep the tall Satedan from simply walking right through them.

He was tempted to get up and knock on the door for a fifth time that hour to ask again for some news when he heard the chime of the door panel. John momentarily held his breath as he saw not just the orderly enter the tiny room, but he was accompanied by two guards that stood watch inside the door. One of them had a nasty bruise near his ear and he idly wondered if it was the same guard that Carson had tackled when he escaped, and with some trepidation he realized that with most of the security personnel out looking for Carson and Rodney, he likely was indeed the same guard.

The orderly cleared his throat and looked down at his hands nervously before looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry, Colonel Sheppard, but the news isn't good. Your blood tests show you are positive for the virus."

John let out his breath in a slow, drawn out sigh as he sat back down onto the cot. "I don't see how this could have happened," he insisted. "How long have I been infected? Carson didn't touch me."

He pondered the question thoughtfully and crossed his arms over his chest. "If you weren't infected by Carson, it must have been earlier when you were off-world. Do you recall if you might have had a questionable encounter with any of the natives?"

John scratched at his chin as he tried to think. "Not really."

"Well, it's difficult to say for sure then," the orderly admitted with grim honesty. "But our research seems to indicate that there is a direct correlation between the degree of exposure to the virus and its incubation period."

"What does that mean?" he asked, confused.

"The virus doesn't spread the same way that most other viruses do," the orderly tried to explain, and seemed somewhat McKay-like in his use of hand gestures. "It causes a lot of changes in the neural chemistry of the brain in its victims and causes profuse sweating and secretion of virus-impregnated mucus at certain areas of the body, namely the hands."

"Right," John said, beginning to grasp the concept.

"The most likely reason that this mucus is secreted on the hands is so that when the victim begins experiencing paranoid delusions, the virus can be spread to as many people as possible. And more exposure to that mucus the victim has, the shorter the amount of time it takes for that person to decline to a point where they begin to experience symptoms."

What seemed like a distant memory slowly came to the forefront of John's mind. He began to remember the swamp-planet and how the young woman that that had been lying on the ground began to thrash about. She had splattered mucus from her hands onto his shoulder and chin, and he had quickly wiped it off onto his sleeve. If it had taken him this long to develop symptoms, Rodney's symptoms would certainly be sudden and acute. They were all in serious trouble.

He jumped to his feet, startling the guards. "I need to speak with Dr. Weir right now!"

"Dr. Weir is busy directing the search effort," the orderly reminded him. "It might take a little while for her to get around to seeing you."

"Well, tell her it's important," John said with some annoyance.

The orderly's only reply was a short nod before he promptly left him to wallow in freakish misery. John wasn't sure how much time he had left, but he was sure as hell going to make the most of it. A nervous itch formed on his neck, and he spontaneously rubbed at it as he sat back down heavily onto the cot. It was going to be a long night.


	8. Falling Shadows

As Rodney slowly woke, he knew only that he felt absolutely horrible. It was difficult to breathe, and all sensation had left his bound hands some time before his memory had left him. He tried to wriggle some circulation back into his fingers and shifted his weight off his left arm in an effort to relieve the numbness. His hands felt sticky and slick, somehow giving him enough leeway to pull against and tear free from the ruined fiber-optic cable that bound his wrists.

Rolling onto his stomach, all he really wanted to do was to sleep off the dazed and bewildered feeling that road-blocked itself in between his barely-conscious thought processes and memory. Hands grasped his shoulders and tried to pull him onto his back. Rodney sleepily resisted, trying to pull away from and ignore them, but to no avail. The hands were cold and slimy and were trying to feel for his pulse. He vaguely heard his name being called softly as if from far away, trying to get his attention.

"Rodney..." Carson whispered, visibly relieved to feel a strong pulse under his fingertips. His expression probed Rodney questioningly.

Rodney slowly forced his eyes open and found himself nervously looking up into Carson Beckett's pale and disconcerted face, but the reasoning behind why he felt nervous escaped him for the moment. He shakily pushed himself up into a sitting position and tried to rub the numbness from his aching wrists. As he glanced down at them, he could see the discolored lines across the back of his hands where the cable had bit into his skin, as well as copious globules of mucus that had formed on his hands and were now dripping onto his pants.

He looked up and a sudden surge of panic began to pulse through him as the memory of Carson's rage was brought back unbidden to his mind. Terrified, Rodney shrank back reflexively and looked out across the room, wondering if the water was deep enough not to break his legs in a fall if he tried to squeeze underneath the railing. But Carson seemed to sense what was running through his mind and firmly took hold of his jacket with his hands, once again smearing it with slimy mucus.

Rodney was vaguely aware of Carson's hurt look through the panic straining in his head.

He could picture that moment in the isolation room that had him in the same grip with crystal clarity, and the only real difference other than their location was Carson's worried expression. His sickly pale green eyes still seemed harsh despite an apparent return to sanity. Rodney willed himself to calm down. He remembered what happened the last time he had pressed him to let him go and didn't want that line of events to repeat itself; Carson might not have the will to resuscitate him next time.

Slowly, his labored breathing subsided as he sat back and waited to see what his captor would do. He let out a relieved sigh when Carson simply released his hold on his jacket and sat down next to him, figuring that he must not have been feeling much better than Rodney felt himself. He discreetly eyed the ladder that was behind him just a couple of scant meters away.

Carson sighed heavily. He felt like he wanted to apologize, to say something to make Rodney understand what was happening, but found he was unable to summon the words. His thoughts and feelings passed fleetingly fast, and he couldn't have hoped to put much of it into words even if he had felt able to speak. His thoughts wandered listlessly, and at first he wasn't sure what he had just heard. Then the sounds became clearer. There were people outside, still relatively far away, but he could hear them splashing the water as they waded through it.

Caught by surprise, fear and panic began to murmur from the depths of his mind. He knew that they were looking for him, and he felt the urge to run away and hide almost overwhelm him. In that moment of hesitation, Rodney took a chance and bolted for the ladder. Carson's rage was once again dredged up through the surface of his fear as he bounded after him.

Rodney shimmied down the ladder and ploughed through the water as fast as he could make himself move. His arms burned with the effort as the recently renewed circulation made them feel rubbery and weak, and his throat clenched with the strain of heaving breaths through abused airways. He desperately clawed at the water, trying to make it to the steps near the doorway before Carson could reach him.

Finally reaching the steps, Rodney scrambled past and ran as fast as his feet would carry him. The sloshing of the footsteps of a search team grew closer, and he was suddenly utterly terrified of what they might do to him. He stopped for a moment, trying to debate whether or not to go to them for help or to run away, but could not immediately decide. An instant later, he was firmly in Carson's grasp and being dragged away from the sound of the footsteps through the water.

He was too exhausted to fight him. Carson yanked him along from corridor to corridor, but seemed more annoyed than angry. Rodney's mind started to burn with fatigue, and he almost tripped over his own feet several times in the process. He doubled over as a wave of nausea and dizziness swept over him. The pain in his mind slowly worsened as though each step was burning him alive until he finally cried out with anguish.

Carson stopped and laid him on the floor, his annoyance gone for the moment. He tried to lay a hand against Rodney's mouth in an attempt to stifle the noise, but the effort was futile. The bounding footsteps of a search party still echoed through the corridor, looming ever closer. He didn't know exactly where they were, but a voice in the back of his mind nagged at him to take Rodney someplace safer to recuperate.

He hit the door panel to open the door to one of the unused and broken-down living quarters in that section, dragged his burden through, and then closed the door behind them. He held his breath and clenched his hand over Rodney's mouth to keep him quiet. Footsteps passed by the doorway outside. One particularly heavy-sounding set of boots, probably belonging to Ronon, stopped dangerously close to the door. After a moment, he moved on with the rest of his search party and Carson let out a nervous sigh of relief.

Rodney's mind burned. No matter how much he wished it would go away, it only grew stronger. Something inside his mind broke apart, and the torrent of fire overwhelmed him completely. He rolled onto his side and buried his face deep in his arms. Slowly, the pain faded into a dull ache in the back of his mind, ever present. Rodney willingly slipped into a deep trance, listening idly to his heartbeat and the dripping of water in the darkness, despite the relative dryness of the ruined room.

* * *

He couldn't quite remember for sure, but if the thought had crossed his mind that Carson was weak-willed for succumbing to the virus, this was a moment John would have gladly recanted. He was getting sick, and if he hadn't felt it coming on before, he certainly did now. His limbs were weak and sore, his throat felt swollen, and he was sure he had a fever. It was at least ten times worse than any bout of the flu he remembered having before, and he suspected that he hadn't even reached the worst stages of infection yet, certainly not if Carson's condition was any indication. It was worse even than being transformed into an Iratus bug.

He rolled from his back onto his side and tried to cover his face with the blanket he'd been given by the orderly. The lights had become far too bright, and the nurses that occasionally tended to him had been reluctant to comply with his requests that they be turned off. Feverish chills ran down his spine and beads of sweat trickled across his skin, causing him to shiver uncontrollably under the blanket. He was miserable.

The latest round of blood tests seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual, though at this point he really couldn't have cared less about the reason why. Every few minutes, John peered down at his shaking hands under the blanket, wondering when he'd finally see the next sign of the virus taking over his body in the form of mucus-covered hands. How long after that would it be before he lost control of himself, like Carson did? When would he become a danger to the people around him? When would they become fearful enough that they might decide to restrain him to the cot?

He thought that perhaps the time had finally come when the orderly that had visited him before appeared at the door, still accompanied by two guards. John weakly lifted himself up into a sitting position as the orderly gingerly swabbed his arm with alcohol for what he thought was going to be another IV line. Instead, his gaze was met with a butterfly needle, a perfect indicator that they wanted more blood. John groaned in disgust. How much blood did they really need to measure how far the virus had progressed?

"Don't worry, Colonel," the orderly assured him. "I've got some pretty good news with the bad news this time."

"Well, give me the bad news first then," he asked tiredly.

"Alright," the orderly began tentatively as he expertly stuck the needle into one of the more prominent veins on John's arm. "The bad news is that we're probably going to need a lot more blood samples from you, and you'll be feeling pretty sick for some time."

John sighed and ran his hand through his hair, not sure how much more bad news he could take. "And what's the good news?"

The orderly's face formed itself into a warm smile. "You're going to be just fine. And thanks to you, once Dr. Beckett and Dr. McKay are found, they're going to be just fine too."

"What do you mean?" He was genuinely perplexed. "Why is it thanks to me?"

"Your initial exposure to the virus was so small that your body has had time to develop an anti-body," he explained carefully with more McKay-like hand gestures. "The incubation period of the virus was too long for it to have enough time to overwhelm your immune system. We're working on developing a treatment using the anti-bodies from your blood as I speak."

John couldn't remember a time in his life where he felt so relieved. The good news had certainly been worth waiting for, even if he had to suffer through being sick for a while longer. "Where is Dr. Weir? I told you I needed to speak with her as soon as possible."

The orderly held up his hands submissively. "I told her that you wanted to speak with her, but she's been very busy. I'm sure she'll come to see you when she has a chance."

He took a deep breath to release some tension as he realized that, now that his immune system was fighting the virus, he was the least of Dr. Weir's worries at the moment. John lay back on the cot, trying to relax, but the shivers returned in full force. The orderly helpfully retrieved John's blanket from the floor and covered him with it.


	9. Home Invasion

Rodney had only been vaguely aware of what had been happening when Carson picked him up, slung him over his shoulder, and left the dank room. He heard the voices and footsteps of the search parties looking for them as Carson darted through doorways and corridors trying to avoid them, but for what seemed like a long time he was unable to move or even say anything. The dull ache in his mind still persisted in aggravating him, but Rodney could do nothing about it at the moment and simply allowed himself to be carried wherever Carson was taking him.

Slowly coming around from his trance-like state, he tried to look about as Carson carried him through more hallways and finally came to a stop in front of a door that Rodney seemed to recognize. It led to one of the labs that contained a naquada generator. Carson pressed the panel to open the door and quickly stepped through, then pressed the panel to close it behind them. The lab was long empty by now. Rodney figured that the time must have been well into the evening hours at that point, and any of his lab assistants that might have been by earlier would certainly be gathered in the commissary eating dinner or possibly preparing for bed by now.

Carson tried to set him on his feet and held him upright in a firm grip, prodding him to manipulate the generator.

Rodney mumbled incoherently, still trying to get his bearings. Annoyed, Carson shook him. It didn't have the effect he wanted; Rodney became dizzy, doubled over, and emptied his stomach onto the floor, not that much was left in it.

Carson was shoving him harder, willing him to work faster.

He no longer remembered why he should have hesitated to comply and pushed the feeling aside as he managed to pry his fingers underneath the latch that held the activator in place. Rodney switched the rotating disc that controlled the generator's power levels to the off position and then removed it, thereby sabotaging any attempt someone else might make to easily reactivate it. This was the generator that powered the control room and the labs in the northwest sections of the city. Disabling it effectively ruined the ability for anyone in the control room to track them with the life sensors at all.

Carson tugged on his arm, urging him to leave.

Anger and frustration welled up within Rodney as he followed Carson out the door and back into the corridor. He felt helpless to resist the rage that was building inside him from that dark and terrifying part of his mind that tortured him, but he felt thrilled at the same time. Feeling no inhibition and a lack of guilt at his actions was exhilarating, perhaps even pleasant, and the part of his mind that knew that what he'd just done was wrong remained submissively quiet and suppressed.

The rage grew and festered until it swept over him like a tsunami. Without an outlet for it, Rodney thought that it might eventually drive him mad. A glance over in Carson's direction seemed to show that he was suffering a similar affliction, and faint whispers in the back of their minds silently urged them both onward towards the center of the city, towards people that they silently denied to themselves would become their next victims. As they trudged forward, the whispers grew louder and felt oddly familiar to them, even comforting in a small way, despite not knowing where they came from.

They pressed on without incident until they both found themselves outside of the lab where Carson had first begun chasing Rodney. Thought it had only been just over a day, Rodney thought that it felt like it had been a long time since he last stood in that doorway. A voice tinged with a Czech accent managed to filter through the closed door of the lab. He seemed to be speaking to someone over the radio. Listening carefully, neither of them could discern any other voices or movement in the room. Zelenka was alone.

Rodney smiled slightly as he realized that Radek must have been working late again, and he obviously had no idea what was in store for him. Without a word, Carson silently stepped aside and stood by to keep watch outside, managing to catch a glimpse of the scientist inside as Rodney opened the door, stepped through, and shut it behind him.

* * *

Dr. Weir was late leaving her office again, listening to the status reports coming in from coordinating the search parties over her radio. She justified overworking herself with the thought that if she left to get some sleep, it could mean that Carson and Rodney would suffer that much longer. Elizabeth was not prepared to take that risk, so she determinedly poured herself another cup of lukewarm coffee from the carafe that Major Lorne had left on her desk for her a couple of hours ago.

Just as she was about to take a sip of her coffee, the lights dimmed for a moment and then suddenly blinked out of existence completely. She set down the mug and strode out of her office into the control room.

"What's going on?" she demanded from Lorne, who sat typing at a console.

"The naquada generator powering this section appears to have been sabotaged," he reported flatly.

"Reroute Teyla and Ronon to assess the damage." Elizabeth touched her radio. "Dr. Zelenka, this is Weir. Please respond."

"Zelenka here," he answered a moment later. "What can I do for you, Dr. Weir?"

"Radek, someone seems to have sabotaged the naquada generator powering this section," she explained. "I want you to join one of the search teams and fix it as quickly as possible."

There was a moment of hesitation before he responded. "Well, depending on who it was that sabotaged the generator, it could take a while to--"

His response was cut off.

"Dr. Zelenka, please say again," Weir asked, growing concerned as the moments passed. "Radek, what's going on? Respond please."

Lorne looked up from his console; confusion and worry were etched on his face, mirroring Elizabeth's own. She moved closer to the console and rested her palm on the edge. "Have Teyla and Ronon's team find Zelenka immediately. Contact me when they find out what's going on. I have to see someone in the infirmary."

* * *

She took a deep breath as she approached the isolation room that contained Colonel Sheppard. The two guards at the door nodded respectfully as she stopped and pressed the panel to open the door. They accompanied her through the doorway, but kept a respectable distance as she stepped closer to the cot where John laid.

He was pale and drenched with sweat, but was still awake. She gave him the warmest smile she could muster, and he seemed to accept the offering with little objection to her lack of a practiced bedside manner. It was a struggle for John to sit up in his weakened condition, and Elizabeth couldn't help but place a comforting hand on his shoulder to stop the unnecessary gesture.

"You don't have to get up," she assured him uneasily. "I can only imagine how awful you must feel, if the way you look right now is any indication."

John sighed tiredly and brought his hands up from under the covers to show them to her. "See? Nothing's on my hands yet. The doctors keep telling me that it's all starting to clear up, but I think they're trying too hard to make me feel better. It makes me nervous."

Elizabeth smiled understandingly and decided to cut right to the chase. "So, what is it you wanted to speak with me about so urgently?"

"I heard about what happened to the generator," he said grimly. "I'd be willing to bet that it was Rodney who did the sabotaging, and after what I've been told about the virus, I'm surprised that more people haven't started disappearing already."

"What do you mean?" she said hesitantly, surprised. "I tried to get hold of Dr. Zelenka on the radio just a few minutes ago, and he was cut off as he was speaking. Teyla and Ronon are out trying to find him."

A worried look washed over John's face. "We need to find them right now before they do any more damage. I need to be out there with Teyla and Ronon! I'm the only one in this city who's immune to this thing!"

"All you need to do right now is rest, John." She gave him a stern look that shut him up. "Teyla and Ronon can handle things until you're feeling better. Now, what made you suspect that people were going to start disappearing so quickly?"

"I was told that the amount of time that it takes before an infected person starts experiencing symptoms is directly related to how much they've been exposed to the virus." John managed to push himself up into a sitting position this time, and Dr. Weir didn't move to stop him. "I was hardly exposed to a drop, and look how long it took me to develop any symptoms. I'm sure that by now, Rodney's had a lot more exposure from Carson. By the doctors' estimates, he's probably been experiencing paranoid delusions for some time now. Who knows how many more people they've potentially infected by now?"

Dr. Weir was quite disconcerted at this revelation. "What more can you recommend that I do?"

He had a very clear and concise solution in mind for keeping any more people from being infected. "Barricade everyone not on a search team inside specially designated areas of the city, like the infirmary or the commissary or the control room, staying in large groups that can't be picked off individually. Make sure you do a head count of everyone present and make a note of anybody that's gone missing."

"I can do that," she agreed, nodding in turn.

A tense moment of silence passed between them as John tried to think if there was anything else that could be done, but he was fairly certain he'd covered most bases. "I think that's about it."

Dr. Weir placed a reassuring hand on his arm. "Don't worry, John. I'll take care of it."

He watched her leave, suddenly not so sure that he really wanted to be out there when Carson and Rodney went out looking for more people to infect. But who else would do it, if not him?


	10. Dissolute

A/N: I've made a small change here to better the flow of events up to and through chapter 11. Thanks for all the great suggestions, Hettie! And thanks also to my beta, who knows who she is and finally managed to come 'round to reading chapters 10 and 11!

* * *

Rodney growled at Radek irritably. 

He couldn't help but admire Radek Zelenka's persistence. The man simply would not stay unconscious, despite having been strangled into silence several times before. Each time Rodney lost his temper, he slipped closer and closer to the edge of his sanity, and guard duty certainly didn't suit him at the moment. For what seemed like the umpteenth time in the hour since Carson had left, he found himself angrily grinding his teeth with rage every time the other scientist opened his mouth.

"You must listen to me," Radek pleaded, his eyes wide with fear. "You are not in your right mind! Please, let me go before it is too late!"

He wasn't sure how much longer he could take it. Rodney jumped to his feet and peered down, snarling angrily at Zelenka, his fists clenched tightly.

Again, Radek pleaded with him, pushing the line of Rodney's patience further back. "For pity's sake, Rodney, listen to reason!"

Rodney kneeled down next to him, moving agonizingly slowly. The mixed expression of pure hatred, rage, and annoyance on his face terrified Radek beyond conscious consideration of his next words, which faded to an unintelligible whisper as he shrank back against the railing as far as he could. Had he known that Rodney himself had been held captive in that same spot just hours before, bound by the same fiber-optic cable, perhaps he would have considered remaining silent until Rodney's rage had faded a bit. Now Rodney simply stared at him, as if daring him to utter another word.

Radek was silent for a moment and stared back, trying to mentally gauge how much more leeway Rodney would give him. Like each time before, he simply couldn't fathom that his fellow scientist could ever seriously consider harming him. He watched in horror as Rodney tentatively reached out a trembling hand for his neck; he held his breath for what he knew would follow.

But Rodney stopped. The trembling in his hands ceased for a small moment as he slowly pulled them back. Radek blinked in confusion as the anger on Rodney's face was momentarily replaced with shock and horror, and was then once again covered with that veil of rage and frustration. He watched Rodney sit back heavily against the wall, letting out a slow breath as he mused to himself grimly, but with some hope. Perhaps it wasn't too late to help his friend after all. All he could think of to do was to open his mouth and plead with him once again to think rationally, but Radek finally resisted the temptation. There couldn't have been any other reason for Rodney to have fought so hard to regain his senses, even for just a moment, if he hadn't just been about to kill him. The thought was distressingly sobering.

He was saved momentarily by the sound of someone wading through the water below them. Rodney was suddenly twitchy, standing up to get a better glimpse of who it might be, then visibly relaxed as he realized that the sound was being made by a single person. Carson was returning. When he appeared in the doorway, he stopped for a moment in the blinking luminescence of the damaged lighting to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the flooded room. Rodney could see that he was carrying someone on his fatigued shoulders, and so he scrambled down the ladder to assist.

Carson said nothing, nonchalantly accepting the help as they dragged the latest victim of his rage up the ladder and onto the platform. Rodney recognized the man's face, but did not remember his name, figuring that he must be another one of those officers from the _Daedalus_ that had been ordered to help with the search. He might have been tempted to ask how Carson had managed to separate his victim from his search party, but even if he'd been able to, he ultimately decided against trying. He didn't really care to know.

As voices and splashing echoed through the water-filled corridors, Rodney scowled in irritation. Carson had been followed. Shoving the burden back into Carson's hands, he gave him an annoyed glare for his carelessness and then shimmied back down the ladder as quietly as he could. He moved slowly at first so as not to agitate the water enough to give away their hiding place, then bounded through the ankle deep water further out into the hallways seeking to lead away the search party. He would just have to cause enough mischief to keep them too busy to bother with Carson. Rodney casually referenced the mental image of a map of Atlantis in his head, then strode off determinedly in the direction of nearest active generator, which was to the west.

There was just enough of a gap in the railing for Radek to see Rodney leave. An attempt to cry out for help was swiftly met with a kick to the ribs from his remaining captor. He cringed with the pain that stabbed him as he breathed, watching helplessly as Carson lowered the unconscious man onto the platform next to him and then ripped another fiber-optic conduit from the broken panels of the wall to bind him. A different pain, almost a burning sensation, was beginning to creep up his spine to the back of his head. His mind began to burn. Terrified, Radek clenched his eyes shut and denied his mind to it. The city fell away from his awareness as his mind and body struggled in its hopeless battle against the inevitable; the virus was taking him.

* * *

John peeked through the tiny window in the isolation room's door as he pulled on his jacket and put his radio's ear-piece in place. As much as he sympathized with their concern, he was determined not to let them stop him from doing what he knew he had to do. The orderly had informed him some time ago that they had isolated the anti-body in his blood and were in final phases of the process of synthesizing it into a treatment, so he figured that they didn't really need him any more. Despite not quite feeling back to 100-percent normal yet, John felt like he had slept far too much and was eager to leave his prison behind to go back to work. 

The infirmary's isolation rooms weren't completely secure, and as he took the cover of the inner door panel off, he searched for the crystal that would override the lock when removed, praying that his memory wouldn't fail him as he tried to remember the security demonstration that Dr. McKay had given last month. He thought it ironic that McKay was now one of the reasons that John was defying orders and trying to sneak out.

The door obediently clicked, and a moment later John had managed to shove it open enough to slip through, much to his delight and surprise. He slid into the shadows of a nearby darkened corner of the infirmary and tried to visualize the nearest exit in his mind as he observed the goings-on of the infirmary. The nurses and orderlies working at their lab stations had not noticed him, but there were a few more people that could be seen sitting in chairs and sleeping in cots in an adjoining area of the infirmary. It seemed that Elizabeth had already enacted at least one of his suggestions; since the infirmary was obviously an essential area Atlantis, it'd been designated a safe zone and had been barricaded.

That meant the doors would be guarded, though. John peeked around the corner, carefully timing the patrol pattern of the single attentive guard as he strode between the two entrances at the opposite ends of that part of the infirmary. If he timed it right, he could slip past behind him and exit unheard.

"Colonel Sheppard!" He winced as Dr. Biro exclaimed protectively. "Just where do you think you're going? You're in no condition to leave the infirmary."

He knew he should've tried to shut the door to the isolation room behind him. Letting out a heavy sigh, he turned to face her wrath, making sure the tone of his voice was as insistent as he could manage. "I'm going to find them."

She gave him a stern look, her eyes narrowing crossly as she folded her arms. "What makes you think you can do that? Not only are you still recovering from your ordeal, but Dr. Weir has ordered a lockdown. No one is allowed outside of the designated areas without the escort of a search party."

"Fine," John said, scowling and clenching his fists in irritation. "Then call up the nearest search party and tell them to come by and pick me up."

"You're still too weak to leave the infirmary!" she insisted.

He said nothing, electing to instead give her his best, most stubborn stare.

She pondered the request for a moment, then touched her radio. "Dr. Weir, this is Dr. Biro."

The response came a moment later. "This is Weir."

"Colonel Sheppard is requesting to be assigned to a search team," she said flatly.

Dr. Weir sounded incredulous. "Is he well enough for duty?"

"Not really, in my opinion, Ma'am," Biro replied, "but he is insistent. We've only just finished our first batch of serum to counteract the effects of the virus."

With a few more moments of hesitation, Dr. Weir gave the word John was hoping for. "Alright, I'll send Major Lorne's team to the infirmary to fetch him."

At that moment, the lights dimmed and flickered, then disappeared. Dr. Biro shifted, peering around the infirmary with a concerned look on her face, and then spoke again. "Dr. Weir, we've just lost power in the infirmary."

"Damn," Elizabeth audibly cursed over the channel. "The power routed to the control room is gone, too. Dr. Biro, prepare as much of the serum for distribution as possible. Is Colonel Sheppard still there with you?"

"Yes, Ma'am," she affirmed.

"I'm here Elizabeth," John stated calmly as she proferred him her radio. He gathered up his weapons from the stockpile in the corner at the same time.

"One of Rodney's lab assistants is also with Lorne's team," Weir added helpfully. "See if you can't check up on the guards at the west lab, then get her to the Naquada generator in the south lab and buy her enough time to re-route power back to the control room and the infirmary. I'll route Teyla and Ronon's team to meet you there. We almost managed to track Carson down after he attacked Lieutenant Denton. We can't afford to lose the life-sensors!"

John caught sight of Major Lorne approaching the entrance. "I'm on it. Lorne just got here."

"Be careful, John." Weir said before closing the comm-link.

Before John ran off to join the search, Dr. Biro pulled him to the side for one more item of interest. "Colonel, you'll need this."

He looked down curiously as she placed three tube-like objects into his hand. "What is this?"

"They're auto-injector vials, kind of like an Epi-pen, filled with the first batch of serum and mixed with a heavy sedative," she explained. "They should put Carson or Rodney out of commission long enough for you to get them to the infirmary."

"Thanks, Doc," he mumbled in appreciation, making a break for the door before she could change her mind about letting him go.

* * *

As his team passed through the corridors by the west lab, John covered Major Lorne's back while the rest of his team helped up the single remaining of the two guards that had been posted to protect the generator. He spied a P90 lying on the floor completely spent of its ammunition. John circled the perimeter of the lab nervously, backed by two others from the _Daedalus_ in his team, and the other three had gone inside to check on the generator. Rodney's young lab assistant, a pretty brunette who wore glasses, emerged a moment later.

"The activator disc has been taken," she reported grimly. "I can't the generator back online without it."

"We'll take him with us," John said referring to the guard. "Let's get to the south lab as quickly as possible."

As his team matched his stride, John touched his ear-piece to report. "Elizabeth, this is Sheppard."

"Go ahead," she responded immediately.

"One of the guards was unconscious and another missing when we got to the west lab," he reported solemnly. "Rodney must have taken him."

John almost thought he could hear her swear under her breath. "We're losing too many people."

"Tell me about it," John snapped with more irritation in his voice than he meant. "We're almost at the south lab."

Ronon and Teyla were already there guarding the entrance and were apprehensively awaiting John's approach. He strode up to and past them into the lab with feigned confidence. The young lab assistant didn't wait for the command and went right to work.

"Did you see anyone?" Sheppard asked Teyla as he oversaw the effort, motioning the rest of their teammates to take up positions guarding the doors to the lab.

"We did not," Teyla reported quickly. "But we only just arrived here a few moments before you did."

The faint chime and whoosh of a door opening echoed through the corridor behind them. With a singular motion, John, Teyla, and Ronon all turned their weapons in the direction of the sound and waited.


	11. Put Your Trust in John

A/N: Two more chapters should be upcoming, wrap-up and closure. Although, if I draw things out like I normally do, I suppose it could possibly turn into three chapters. I hope you all enjoy the wonderful angst in reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

P.S. - Careful readers might also note some dialogue with a slight resemblance to that in a scene in the season 3 episode 'Irresistable'. It wasn't quite intentional, but seems to work well IMHO.

P.P.S. - I made another change, leading from a small change in chapter 10, to the flow of events here in chapter 11. John now has Epi-pens full of serum and may be forced to use them!

* * *

"Ronon, Lorne, you're with me," John ordered casually. "Teyla, you and the others stay here and guard the generator."

"John!" Teyla exclaimed insistently, placing a firm hand on his arm. "Rodney is very intelligent. We must not become separated!"

"Guard the generator," he reiterated gently, but persistently. She hesitated for a moment, then begrudgingly stepped back into the doorway.

John's heart pounded in his ears as adrenaline rushed through his veins. Ronon and Lorne moved with him as he slowly paced his way down the hallway in the direction the sound had emanated. He could hear the faint hum of power generation fade as the lights that illuminated the corridor went dark. Obviously Rodney's assistants knew what they were doing, and power was again being routed to the control room. John's confidence climbed a bit with the thought that Elizabeth would now be able to help him track Rodney and Carson, and he was comforted knowing that she was watching his back.

With his P90 leveled straight ahead, John stopped at the edge of an intersecting corridor and peered around each corner, but saw no signs of anyone in any direction. If someone was out there stalking them, splitting up would have been a seriously bad lapse in judgment. He decided it was better to err on the side of caution and instead activated his radio.

"Control room, this is Sheppard," he called, but did not receive a response. "Control room, please respond. Elizabeth, are you there?"

He waited for another terse moment, then tried a different channel. "Control room; is anybody paying attention up there?"

"Colonel Sheppard!" A frantic reply came suddenly; John thought he recognized the voice as belonging to one of the night-watch officers that manned the consoles. "We need assistance in the control room immediately!"

"Evans? What the hell is going on up there?" John demanded, frustration edging its way into his voice.

He could hear the tech frantically shouting orders in the background. "Sir, they blew out the lock on the door! People are hurt up here!"

If it was Rodney causing havoc to the generators, it must have been Zelenka.

"Calm down," John urged as his heart jumped into his throat. It seemed that all the business with the generator had been a distraction. "Now tell me exactly what happened."

"An incendiary device had to have been planted behind the door," he explained, taking a large gulp between breaths. "Dr. Weir was hurt in the blast and is unconscious. Oh God! They're coming through!"

The sound of machine-gun fire erupted over the com-link, their terrified screams echoing in his ears, and then it all faded far too quickly into silence. The line went dead a second later. Shock began to set in as he took a deep breath, a few remaining beads of sweat dripping precariously over his eyebrows and into his eyes.

"Let's go," he said, mentally shaking off the anxiety that was building up in his mind as they trotted earnestly back to the south lab. Teyla greeted him with an even more deeply concerned appearance than before. She must have heard the disturbing exchange over the radio.

"I'm not giving up just yet." John was planning desperately; he was sure he had just come up with a good idea. "We can't let them keep the control room. Teyla, you and your team need to guard this generator at all costs. If we lose the life-sensors again, we'll lose the whole city."

John next turned to Major Lorne and handed him a vial of serum that he had obtained from Dr. Biro. "Lorne, you, your team, Ronon, and I will head to the control room and take it back any way we have to."

Ronon spun and charged his stunner, seemingly anxious to finally be on the offensive again for a change. John left Teyla's worried look behind him as the six of them jogged off to meet the promise of retaking the control room.

* * *

Teyla took a few moments to glance around at her three other teammates, which still included Rodney's assistant standing next to her, and noted that two of the others seemed quite young. Their nervous demeanors were all too apparent, and as she managed to catch their wandering eyes with her inspection, she gave each of them an assuring nod of confidence. She listened carefully for any sign of an attack, but managed to hear only their own footsteps echoing through the corridors as some of them shifted their feet nervously.

The chime of a door opening echoed across the corridors once more. Teyla raised her P90 in the direction of the sound, stepping protectively in front of the young scientist. The other two marines in her team guarded the door on the opposite side of the lab. Slow, determined footsteps began to echo eerily throughout the expanse of the corridors before them, making it difficult to tell exactly which direction they were coming from.

The young lieutenant on the other side began to panic, his breathing becoming labored as he peered around in either direction of the hallway in front of the door. The marine shrieked with fear as a figure finally darted out from the shadows not five meters in front of him. Carson Beckett reached out a hand and as fast as lightning had the neck of the petrified soldier in his grip. He let off a few rounds with his weapon as he gasped for breath, some of which passed through the flesh of his foe's leg, but it did not faze him at all. The bullets simply left behind dark abrasions; blackened blood dribbled almost imperceptibly from each one.

The young marine's comrade turned and without thinking emptied at least half of his clip into Carson's body. Annoyed and still unfazed, Carson tossed the hapless lieutenant into the other soldier, watching with a cruel smile as they crumpled to the floor unconscious. He next turned his attention to Teyla, his smile fading.

Teyla took a step back and turned her head to order the frightened scientist away. "Run," she commanded firmly, raising her weapon. "Go now!"

The tech didn't need to be told twice and took off running down the corridor in the direction that Colonel Sheppard's team had left. Teyla turned back to face Carson, his anger overflowing uncontrollably as he edged closer to his objective with each step.

Her finger tensed for a moment on the trigger, hesitating. This was Carson, her friend. Teyla trembled, and was unsure she could bring herself to attempt to kill him. It wasn't his fault, after all. His mind simply wasn't able to assert itself any more. She tried to tell herself that it was no longer Carson that she faced, tried to assure herself that there was no other way. She could not allow him to disable the generator!

* * *

As John ran alongside his teammates headed to the control room, a sudden realization stopped him in his tracks. He had forgotten to give Teyla a vial of serum! Her P90 would be next to useless against anyone infected.

Ronon slowed to a halt, turning around in curiosity. "What is it?"

"Go on without me," John ordered, grabbing for a vial in his pocket and tossing one of the remaining two to Ronon. "I have to go back for a minute."

Ronon shrugged in confusion, but obeyed.

* * *

Teyla's fingers pressed the trigger. She emptied her entire clip into his chest, then took a few steps back and desperately reloaded her weapon. He kept coming closer, completely unaffected. She emptied the next clip into his chest - nothing. There was no indication that he had felt anything at all. Her trembling hands sank down, the P90 in her hands falling to her side despairingly as she felt the wall against her back.

A wave of terror and helpless panic seized her as Carson coldly reached out for her neck and began to squeeze mercilessly. His eyelids drooped, engrossed in the narcotic-like euphoria. Tears rolled down Teyla's face as she was forced to gaze into his pale-green eyes, which were oddly shadowed by regret and fear while the rest of his features remained emotionless. She fought desperately against his iron grip, struggling to breathe as his mucus-drenched hands choked the life from her.

A moment later, Carson's face contorted with more surprise than pain, and his grip faltered. He fell to his knees, but was not stunned for long. He swiveled around to face the person that had attacked him from behind. Teyla scrambled for safety, coughing and sputtering, as Carson seemed to realize with some anxiety that Sheppard had not left for the control room after all. John stumbled backward, dropping the injector that he had just emptied into Carson's arm, and readied his P90.

John held up a hand, holding back his next attack for the moment. The corridors in either direction stretched on long enough that he would still have a clear shot if his target tried to run. Carson's brow furrowed. He trembled with fear, and John saw telltale signs of tension that looked to indicate he was about to bolt.

"Carson, please don't—," John implored, taking a small step toward him. "You don't have to run any more."

His sweat-soaked face slowly transfigured itself from a state of shocked rage and fear to regret and confusion. Carson was hyperventilating, on the brink of running away screaming in panicked terror. It seemed like he wasn't quite able to decide what to do, though, which gave a small ray of hope that he wasn't yet completely beyond help.

John took another small step toward him.

"No!" Carson shouted as he backed up against the wall, trembling violently.

Halting for the moment, John took a deep breath and relaxed his posture a bit, trying to assume an aura of compassion and understanding and slowly bent down to help Teyla up to her feet as she regained her breath. She took his hand, grateful for the assistance. Taking out a kerchief from within his vest, he helped clear her neck of the coating of yellow-green mucus that had been left by Carson's hands and inspected her airway for any obstruction. She would have some nasty bruises, but didn't appear to be life-threatening.

Carson watched the interchange with mild interest, hanging his head in shame as Teyla leaned back to rest against the opposite wall near the two fallen marines and waited patiently. He honestly hadn't wanted to hurt her. He felt ashamed and abhorred with himself that he hadn't been strong enough to stop it from happening. Tears welled in his eyes as grief and fear overwhelmed him, once again threatening to overtake his conscious mind with the primal urge to run, hide, and hurt the people around him.

"You can fight this," John encouraged, not daring to move another muscle. He was growing more concerned that Carson would attempt to run, but he was becoming more optimistic by the fact that he at least seemed to be listening.

"I can't!" Carson cried.

"You can!" John insisted. He took another hesitant step forward and slowly reached out a hand. "Take my hand, Carson. I'll take you to the infirmary myself."

Carson shook his head disagreeably. "I can't... you'll... you'll become..."

"I'd already been infected on the planet, Carson," he explained slowly. "I'm now immune, so you can't infect me again."

Carson's eyes glazed over in confusion. His gaze shifted back and forth from Teyla to John. He just couldn't seem to think straight. His eyes quickly traveled up and down John's form, noting inconsistencies. He couldn't fathom how it was possible for him to have been infected and show no symptoms. John was hardly sweating at all.

John didn't have time to go in depth, as the orderly had. "My body had enough time to start producing anti-bodies. Dr. Biro's already finished making the first batch of serum to treat you. Use your head! Think about what I'm saying!"

Carson swallowed hard, unsure of what to think.

"Would I be offering you my hand if I thought I would become infected?"

He could not refute John's logic. Slowly, tentatively, Carson reached out a filthy and shaking hand to meet John's. John gripped the proffered hand firmly, despite the gooey mucus, and stepped closer to put a comforting hand on Carson's shoulder.

"Everything's going to be okay," John whispered gently, squeezing gently.

"So tired…" Carson mumbled sleepily as his knees buckled underneath him. Trying to support his friend, John nearly collapsed with fatigue himself. Carson's head rolled forward limply in John's arms as he struggled with the dead weight.


	12. Fateful Reunion

A/N: I made a few changes late last night to chapters 10 and 11. If haven't seen the changes yet, you may want to go back and re-read them before you read this chapter.

P.S. - I made a major overhaul to the dialogue in several chapters in response to feedback that the infected people seem too coherent. Now they don't talk much any more. Thanks for the suggestion, Alpha Pegasi, because I thought so too.

* * *

Radek didn't like having to work with pushy military men, and he considered for a moment whether or not he should still consider Lt. Denton pushy or if now he had simply crossed the line to obnoxious. He was in a bad enough mood as it was, what with the anger and frustration that gripped his mind in a terrible fury, but he was sure that having to put up with someone like Denton would eventually drive him mad. Since the infection had spread to him now, too, the Lieutenant had constantly been making an uncontrollable nuisance of himself.

Zelenka himself would have liked nothing more than to simply curl up in a dry corner of the platform in that dark room and stay there, but Denton was bent on keeping moving and had dragged him along. He simply didn't feel safe if he stayed in one place for any length of time. So Radek was forcibly prodded by Denton from room to room, opening locked doors and sealed corridors for their passage to their next hiding place, as well as stalking careless members of search teams, of which they had only captured two. That was until Denton had managed to locate a cache of explosives that Dr. Weir had tried to hide from them.

Pocketing as much C4 as they could carry, he had dragged Radek along with him to find yet another safe haven from the search parties. But before they could find yet another empty room that was more to his liking, they halted with a growing sense of paranoia as the power was restored in the section they were wandering through, which wasn't far from the control room. Rodney had done his best to limit the city's power reserves, but it wasn't quite enough. If power was being re-routed, they could be running forever with every search party in Atlantis on their heels. That was when Denton had come up with the idea of invading the control room and disabling the life-sensors before the ones looking for them could track them down, and had dragged him back through the watery bowels of the city to solicit Rodney and Carson to his cause.

Denton was insistent, unwilling to give in. Radek wanted to stay behind, but was not permitted to.

Rodney had just returned with a 'new recruit' of his own. He reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged with Dr. Zelenka out the door, and they immediately leapt into a full sprint heading directly to the control room. The run was uneventful, testifying to the fact that the city's inhabitants were still concentrating their efforts on restoring power to the sensors. The door leading to the control room was locked, however. Denton ripped the panel off the side and began to shove his C4 into the opening, obviously intending to blow the locking mechanism into smithereens.

Rodney smacked his hands away from the panel, gasping for air breathlessly as he and Radek finally caught up to him at the door.

"Open it!" Denton demanded, giving Rodney a cold glare. He removed the C4 from the space in the door panel, and then moved to break open a different panel on the other side of the door. He shoved the C4 into it, loosened the latches on the inner panel to direct the blast into the control room, and then set the detonator for ten seconds. Making sure that Rodney and Radek had finished overriding the lock, he pressed the activator button to begin the countdown.

"Fire in the hole!" he shouted reflexively, pulling Rodney and Radek around the corner before they had a chance to complain.

The blast was deafening. When the smoke began to clear, Denton shoved the scientists back toward the entrance. Throwing all their weight against the doors, they slowly managed to force them apart.

As they rushed inside, three startled marines raised their weapons and opened fire from the top of the stairs that led up from the Stargate to the control consoles. Radek raised his arms protectively across his face, but soon realized that it was unnecessary. He could feel the impact of the bullets passing through his flesh. Some even ricocheted off his bones, but none caused him any pain. A strange tingling sensation passed through his body, and then the rage, red as blood, began to build behind his eyes.

He lashed out mercilessly at the nearest marine, sending him flying backward into the wall where he slumped over and did not move again. Some of the techs working the consoles joined in the foray. Rodney and Denton performed similar feats, and all three of them sent the victims of their rage into a painful encounter with a console or over the edge of the railing. When the screams and bullets subdued, seven techs and marines lay unconscious on the floor.

Radek felt no remorse at all for what he'd just done. He thought that perhaps it felt a bit strange, but chose not to reminisce on the feeling. A small movement caught his attention in the corner of his peripheral vision, and he strode over to the other side of the room, which was closer to the Stargate, to find out what it was. One last tech was cowering in the corner behind a console, futilely attempting to hide the unconscious form of Dr. Weir. Blood-smeared cuts and contusions graced the left side of her face and head, as well as the torn left shoulder of her uniform where fragments of the explosion had hit her.

Something stirred weakly inside Radek at the sight of Dr. Weir lying unconscious on the floor, and it confused him. Denton, however, had no such reaction. He pulled the tech out from behind the console and began to strangle him, grinning with perverse pleasure. Rodney and Radek were spellbound. Without a flicker of emotion passing between them, they watched as the man was murdered before their very eyes.

* * *

As Ronon approached the door that led to the control room, he took a moment to inspect the charred hole in the wall not far away. He peered through, observing no one on the other side. Lorne and the rest of his team stopped behind him, dutifully waiting for the word to rush inside through the partially open doors. None of them wanted to go first.

Stepping back from the hole, Ronon slipped through the crack in the doors, ready to stun anyone within range the moment he caught sight of them. But as his eyes scanned the large room, he saw only an unconscious marine at the foot of the steps. The gaping hole in the wall on the inside of the room was still smoking a bit, which meant chances were good that the perpetrators of the explosion were still in the room.

While checking on the health of the unconscious marines, they secured the room and slowly climbed the steps up to the control center of the city, Ronon still leading the way. The sound of a body hitting the floor off to his right startled him, and he spun around to point his gun toward the sound. He was just in time to see an angry Lt. Denton look up from the body of a tech. Dr. Zelenka and Dr. McKay stood nearby, also looking up at him.

As they began to rush toward him, Ronon fired his stunner, sending Denton sliding backward on the floor. Another shot sent Rodney to the floor, rolling over to the railing overlooking the Stargate. But Radek was still running, and Ronon was forced to raise his arms to deflect the hands that grasped for his neck. He struggled against the scientist, who was now much stronger than he used to be, and it was all he could do not to allow himself to be thrown back-first onto the stairs.

Major Lorne was the first to attempt to pry Radek off of Ronon, and when he found him difficult to handle, the rest of his team joined in on the effort. Slipping the vial from his pocket, Lorne jammed its tip into the furious Czech's shoulder, injecting its contents into him. The team managed to hold him still for a few moments until Radek's grip on Ronon finally went slack.

Breathing heavily, Ronon extricated himself from the awkward position and raised his weapon protectively, but the danger was over for the moment. Lorne took a deep breath, looking up to make sure Ronon was okay, then stood and went to drag Lt. Denton back toward the stairs. There was only one vial of serum left, and Lorne suddenly wasn't sure he wanted to be in the position of having to choose which one of the two other infected men to use it on.

"Which one of them should I use this on?" he asked Ronon expectantly.

"This one," Ronon said after pondering the question for a moment, indicating Denton with his foot. "I think he's more dangerous."

_Poor Rodney,_ Lorne thought to himself. _He'll just have to go without it until Dr. Biro finishes the next batch._

* * *

"Hold on, Carson," John gasped with exertion. "We're almost there."

They had been slowly making their way to the infirmary, and with Teyla's help, carrying Carson had been that much less of a burden for him. Luckily for them, one of the marines that Carson had attacked had managed to wake up on his own and was carrying the other on his shoulders.

As they approached the entrance to the main part of the infirmary, a nurse caught sight of them and came out to help. She escorted them to a secluded corner where she helped them lay Carson and the unconscious marine onto gurneys, then strode off into the laboratory section to find Dr. Biro.

John looked down at Carson in his weakened condition, thinking that he was probably having the most restful sleep that he'd likely had in days. The recovery from the virus hadn't been easy for John either, and it certainly wouldn't be for Carson. He had been infected the longest of anyone.

Dr. Biro pushed her way past them to Carson's side to check his vital signs. The look on her face remained grim as she finished her examination and set up an IV drip for him. She turned back to them and shook her head.

"He's suffering from extensive blood loss and severe dehydrated," she informed them. "I don't suppose Carson felt much, but he's very lucky that you found him when you did. If it had been any longer…"

John's expression hardened as her words trailed off into silence.


	13. Apologies and Regrets

A/N: Is it strange that the title doesn't really fit all that well into the story? I could change it, but I probably won't. I'm usually lazy about stuff like that. Although, I suppose perhaps metaphorically, at least, the title could be construed as relevant. I hope you guys are happy with my ending. It's a little short, but it's sweet. At least, I think so.

* * *

A medication-induced veil of mist seemed to hang across his vision as Carson struggled to lift his heavy eyelids. Searing pain wracked his entire body, especially his chest. It took an extraordinary effort just to breathe through it. Another extraordinary effort was expended in the process of coordinating his muscles enough to turn his head to either side. Looking around, he could see a lot of occupied beds lined up next to his. Radek Zelenka and the marine that he had a vague recollection of tossing into a wall were resting in their beds at either side of him. Lifting his head, he spied Dr. Weir recovering not far away, and Rodney McKay was lying in the bed across from him.

A thick film of sweat still dripped from his face into the bedsheets as Rodney twisted and pulled against the heavy-duty restraints holding him down onto the gurney, terrified and in pain. Carson's heart went out to him. He remembered going through a similar circumstance only a few days before. Letting out a heavy and painful sigh, he managed to catch the attention of someone else whose presence he hadn't noticed.

"Hey, Doc," Colonel Sheppard greeted him with feigned cheerfulness. "Glad to see you're awake."

He could do no more than blink at him in return.

Stealing a glance over at Rodney, John continued speaking softly. "Rodney's in pretty bad shape; he's still waiting to get his first real dose of the serum. They're working on making more, but it's slow going. I'm afraid you're both probably going to feel pretty lousy until they get the stuff into full production."

Carson groaned with the strain of trying to speak. "It hurts."

"I'm sure it does," he assured him. "Biro just brought you out of surgery a little while ago to remove some bullet fragments that were still lodged in your chest. I'll see if I can find her and ask her to give you some more pain medication."

Barely managing a nod in response, his eyelids were beginning to droop closed again.

"Listen, Carson," John began carefully. "Before you go back to sleep, I need you to remember something for me."

Carson pried his eyes back open and waited expectantly.

John swallowed and took a deep breath. "Where are the others?"

"Others?" Carson's brow furrowed with confusion.

"The others that you kidnapped and infected," he elaborated. "Where are they?"

Carson couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. His awareness was leaving him, but he managed to force himself to mumble a response. "Sec'n twen'-eight north... third level... through the wa'er."

"Section twenty-eight?" John repeated, looking for confirmation, but Carson was already asleep.

* * *

It was a full week later before they finally released him from the infirmary and only after he had threatened to fire every single one of them if they didn't approve his discharge. He had been given a polite smile at the idle threat, even though he really had meant it at the time. For his staff, though, it only proved that the old euphemism of doctors always making the worst patients was still true.

But now Carson wanted to be alone. If he had gone back to work in the infirmary, it would have meant he'd have to oversee the recovery of the rest of the people that Sheppard had found and recovered. He didn't want to deal with that nightmare right now. He was sitting alone in the commissary, drinking a lukewarm cup of stale coffee that had been made much earlier that day. He didn't really care how old it was, so long as it would keep him awake and free of the nightmares he knew he would see when he closed his eyes.

The lights were dark, and the chairs were still turned up on the tables. The morning crew that would be making breakfast for the city probably wouldn't be waking up to start their shifts for another couple of hours. There was no way that anybody would be dragging Carson back to a bed unless they were prepared to restrain him again. He had slept far too much the last few days and just didn't want to be reminded any more that everything that had happened was all his fault.

Carson was so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't heard the door open behind him and was startled out of his reverie when a large bottle of something that he hoped was alcohol and two glasses were placed on the table in front of him. Rodney McKay took a down a chair from the opposite end of the table and made himself at home, then poured a generous amount of the bottle's contents into each of the glasses.

"What the hell is this, coffee?" he said, taking Carson's mug and tossing the liquid into a nearby sink. He took one of the glasses he had filled for himself and pushed the other closer to Carson. "Try this instead."

"What is it?" Carson asked casually as he held up and inspected the clear liquid in his glass.

"It's... uhh..." Rodney muttered, taking the bottle in his hands to look for a label. Upon finding none, he took a hesitant sniff, and then put it back on the table with a look of resignation. "It's alcoholic. I stole it from Zelenka. I'm sure he won't mind."

With a small smile, Carson downed the contents of the glass in one gulp and then placed it back on the table where Rodney eagerly refilled it after emptying his own. A moment of silence passed between them as Carson tried to think of how to say what he knew he should say.

"Rodney, what I want to say is..." Looking down nervously at his hands, he tried to rephrase his words. "Well, what I meant to say was..."

"Don't." Rodney held up a hand to stop him. "Don't say it."

Carson looked up, anxiety and regret etched on his face. "I tried to kill you."

"Fine." Rodney sighed, pouring himself another drink. "You want me to say it? Alright, I'll say it. I forgive you."

He looked back down at his hands. "I wasn't strong enough to stop it."

"Oh, please," Rodney bellowed, sounding a bit more harsh than he meant to. "I forgive you for not being strong enough." Then, after pausing for a moment, "I wasn't strong enough either."

Both of them now seemed uncomfortable with the subject at hand, and so Rodney decided to change it. "It's too bad about Ted Denton, huh?"

"Aye, I heard about what happened to him." Carson sighed heavily, reminded of yet another person he had meant to apologize to, but hadn't had a chance to do it. After overhearing the nurses talk about his mental breakdown with hushed voices, he felt immensely guilty and looked into the matter himself, but it had been too late. Lt. Denton had already left and was on his way back to Earth on the _Daedalus _where his parents were awaiting his return. He couldn't blame him for having a nervous breakdown. And perhaps it was better that he hadn't gotten around to apologizing after all.

Rodney said nothing more about it.

Carson whispered, his face contorting with the effort of trying to contain his emotions. "What happened to Evans wasn't his fault."

Another long moment of silence ensued. Rodney was beginning to regret his choice of subject matter, and so again decided to change it.

"So," Rodney began tentatively. "Seen any good movies lately?"

"No, I haven't," Carson replied with a heavy sigh as he took another swig from his glass.

"I hear 'Army of Darkness' is on the schedule of movies to be shown in the rec room tomorrow," Rodney stated with a sly grin. "Care to give it a try?"

"Oh God," Carson exclaimed with agitation. "No horror movies for me this weekend, thank you! I think I've had enough horror this week to last a lifetime."

Rodney was incessant. "Oh, come on, Carson! 'Army of Darkness' is a great movie and funny as hell. Live a little!"

Carson smiled and shook his head disapprovingly. Rodney was back to his old self again and would probably somehow finagle him into actually going to see the movie with him. But he was sure as hell going to put up a fight over it.

THE END


End file.
